


It's Alright If You Want To Get Used

by loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, And Now For Something Completely Different, Angst and Smut, Comfort/Angst, Dark fic, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Fucked Up, Heavy Angst, JUST KNOW, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Pidge | Katie Holt is a Mess, Post S7, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, characters are damaged, draaaamaaaaa, explicit rating is no joke, sex for healing, too lazy to tag anything else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:06:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS/pseuds/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS
Summary: In the aftermath of a damaging war, Lance and Pidge seek comfort in each other in a very unexpected way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> story is canon divergent AF and events from the show have been altered or disregarded. just keep that in mind going into this because it doesn’t totally follow the plot of the show  
> (but then again, that's nothing new considering i never follow canon ^^;;)

Pidge was close.

She could feel herself drifting closer and closer to the edge of the release she needed. She stared up at the ceiling blankly, her fingers brushing over her clit as her breathing grew heavier, more laboured as she felt herself begin to clench.

_“When we’re through with you, your bloody corpse won’t even be recognisable to the other paladins or your rebel friends.”_

_“Where’s your Loverboy Blue to try to save you this time, hmmm?”_

_“They’ll be here!” Lance would find her. She knew he would. “And they’ll stop you!”_

_“Really now…? Ezor, what do you think about finishing what we started on the small one?”_

_“Ooooh you know it turns me on when you get all sexy and dark. Let’s do it!”_

Pidge sucked in a shuddering breath from the memory, releasing it in a soft whimper as she recalled the cold steel of the blade that had been pressed against her neck. As she remembered the crippling fear that had begun to render her immobile the longer no one came for her. Electricity jumped through her when she slid her fingers past the silky folds of her core to caress her inner walls.

“C’mon…” she groaned, sliding her two fingers in and out of her as the soft simmer of heat through her body began to rise to a dangerous boil.

She _needed_ more.

Pidge squeezed her breast under her bra, pinching a pebbled nipple and arching her hips off the mattress to get a better angle in her slow pumps. Her breathing grew more ragged as she started to coil tight beneath her navel in that familiar way when she was right on the cusp. Pidge worked her fingers faster, pressing deeper, more roughly. She was almost there. So, _so_ close but it wasn’t quite enough and it was frustrating her.

As she kept up her jerky motions under the waistband of her pants, Pidge concentrated hard, trying to take herself back to that day. The freezing room, closed off from her friends, from anything she knew, unable to be heard and left to the mercy and whims of Zethrid and Ezor. She moved the hand on her breast down to her abdomen, tracing the long jagged, puckered skin of her ugly scar, breath hitching from the swell of pain the more pressure she put on it.

Heat rose in her body as she pressed on the sensitive scar. Pidge choked on a breath, biting hard on her lower lip and arching her hips closer to her hand. She would never forget the way the sharp edge of that rusted sword had torn into her skin, sinking deeper and deeper as her body convulsed and agonising fire made her howl and jerk around. She felt filthy for being like this, for latching onto the lingering pain to get herself off, but she needed this. This was the only way she knew how to get herself off enough to exhaust herself so she could finally go to sleep.

Nothing else had the right intensity.

Not that she was able to get any real hours of shut eye before the damn nightmares started again but at least for that short period of time, she was sated and exhausted enough to be lulled to sleep. It took longer now, wasn’t as easy drawing on the pain she’d stored in her memories, and she knew one day it wouldn’t be enough anymore, but for now this was the best she could do.

Pidge hooked her fingers and pressed against her wall, dipping her other hand into her pants as well to rub more firmly at her clit. Her pace was hurried, rushed as she felt herself start to reach her peak. Intense, focused pleasure right at her sensitive bundle of nerves and the right mixture of anguish and pain and the stimulation from her fingers started to bring her to that familiar rising feeling of satisfaction.

Just a bit more and she’d be right there.

Just a bit more…

Almost…

And then there was a ‘ _poof_!’ and her bed creaked when more weight settled on it. Pidge’s eyes snapped open from her surprise at the noise and she had to stifle a sharp scream when she found Kosmo sitting on the edge of her bed, head tilted curiously.

“K-Kosmo!” she exclaimed, yanking her wet fingers out of her pyjama pants and hurrying to rearrange her dishevelled clothing. “What are you doing here?!”

The wolf didn’t react, and Pidge ran a frustrated hand through her hair as she sat up, irritated because her near orgasm had dissipated entirely. She groaned as she dragged herself off of her bed and trudged to her adjacent bathroom.

“Now what?” she grumbled to herself.

It would take her twice as long to even attempt to reach the same point. There would be no sleep tonight, not unless she could somehow find another way to tire herself out. Pidge washed her hands of her slick and then considered finishing off the last bottle of her wine to help herself get to sleep. It wouldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing, especially since she was going on nearly thirty hours without sleep. Her hollowed gaze, the bags under her eyes, her ashen skin definitely reflected it. She looked like a zombie. Felt like one too day after day.

When she headed back to her bedroom, Kosmo had settled next to her pillow, his head perched dejectedly on his paws and she sighed, feeling guilty. He just wanted company too. Krolia was currently on a mission in another galaxy, and though Shiro _was_ technically Kosmo’s temporary guardian, the man spent outrageously long hours away from his apartment to the point that Pidge had taken to keeping Kosmo with her otherwise he wouldn’t get fed and he’d be alone for too many days at a time. But this wasn’t one of the days.

“I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard.” She climbed back on her bed, clearing her throat and scratching the cosmic wolf behind his ears. He lifted his head slightly, nudging her leg gently with his snout and she gave him a barely there smile back. “Uh, how has Shiro been?”

A soft, subdued whine. Kosmo seemed upset, or at the very least his spirits were down.

She didn’t blame him.

She rubbed his back, scratching the silky fur with her nails every few passes, and he nuzzled into the caress, as if looking for comfort.

“Give him some time. He’s still grieving. We all are.” Pidge sighed, leaning back against her headboard with a yawn. “We all just want to go back to simpler days when we were happier. Before everything came crashing down. I miss those days…”

The thing she never expected she would miss most of those times though was playing video games with Lance. Not dissecting and making tech. Not the discovery of each new planet and all the new cultures. Not long evenings spent in the lounge playing Monsters and Mana. There was something about the whole shouting at each other and screaming insults while trying out the latest acquisition they’d gotten from Terra that she sorely missed. Hunk made sure he himself didn’t lose significant contact with her, but Pidge hadn’t seen Lance in a while truth be told.

Three months to be exact.

To be fair, three months wasn’t that long of a time, but when one was used to spending every waking moment of every day with someone, three months felt like eternity.

The last time Pidge saw him was when they’d been saying goodbye to Allura as she, Romelle, and Coran boarded the newly built Castle of Lions to return to Altea and rebuild her planet with the remaining Alteans. Everyone had politely focused their attention elsewhere to give Lance and Allura the privacy they needed to say goodbye, but Pidge couldn’t help but hang back, watching the tearful goodbye kiss with the sort of morbid curiosity that always ended with her seeing something she shouldn’t.

And she really did see something she shouldn’t.

The way Lance had clutched at Allura’s waist like he never wanted to let go. The way Allura carded her fingers through his hair, whispering words of affection in his ear that Pidge couldn’t, and quite frankly, didn’t want to hear. The heartbroken tears. The soft kisses full of promises of a return. They were intimately familiar with each other and she could see it in the desperate gaze they gave each other when they finally let each other go.

It was love.

A type of love she’d known deep down that they’d acquired but she’d ignored, hoping that if she pretended it didn’t exist, it would somehow just go away.

How wrong she’d been.

After that display, Pidge hadn’t bothered to stay for the launch. So what if it’d been cowardly? So what if she might have seemed a little pathetic? Her heart had gotten broken that day even more than it already had been. And at that point, she’d barely been holding on to some semblance of a normal life that had been slipping ever so quickly through her fingertips so that had been the last straw for her. She couldn’t face Lance. Not without wanting to burst into tears.

Pidge had started the process of removing herself from the friendship when he and Allura’s relationship became serious after they returned to earth. They’d been lost in the throes of their romantic bliss that she’d wanted no part of. She’d had trouble trying to talk to Lance, not just because of his giddiness over his relationship, but also because he was so preoccupied with Allura that Pidge didn’t feel it would be right to tell him about her nightmares from that botched mission. About the crippling phantom pain that plagued her, making her cringe and twitch in her sleep and wake up in a cold sweat, her body feeling like she was being stabbed repeatedly. To this day, the sound of electricity crackling nearly drove her into a panic attack, which was a definite detriment to her work in the engineering lab at times.

Lance had made an attempt to reach out here and there, but she’d purposely let their friendship dwindle and put true distance in their relationship to the point that they didn’t talk that much anymore. And once Allura left, Lance had closed himself off completely, despite Hunk’s fervent attempts to keep them all together.

It was a lost cause anyway.

Voltron hadn’t been able to be formed in the year Keith had been comatose, and eventually, the more time passed, the more they all pursued different endeavours.

Shiro had become a shell of his former self, delving himself tirelessly in work with Atlas to clean up whatever remained of the Galra insurgents around the universe. He refused to return to that hospital room where Keith was hooked up and connected to so many cords and tubes and monitors, looking weak and broken and so unlike himself.

Pidge hadn’t visited Keith much either, but she just didn’t like hospitals. Waking up in one to find her body cut up and scarred and burnt in places had left her permanently in the anti-hospital camp.

And there was also the fact that she blamed herself for what happened to Keith. She could barely look at him without her guilt tearing her apart.

Allura leaving had taken a part of Lance along with her and from what Pidge had heard from Hunk’s occasional check-ins, he wasn’t all smiles like he used to be. Hunk wasn’t doing that great either, but he and Shay had embarked on a galaxy wide excursion to help with relief efforts of liberated planets affected by the Galra and being focused on a mission had kept his spirits for the most part distracted enough. According to Hunk, the Alteans were making great progress, but Pidge usually changed the conversation topic to more neutral territory before she could hear more.

Pidge herself didn’t reach out to anyone, mostly keeping to herself save for Hunk’s occasional call to catch up. Her unfortunate second run-in with the generals had left permanent scars deeper within her psyche than the ones on her skin, and she didn’t want anyone to notice it. They’d been looking for Matt. They’d settled on a different Holt instead.

A chill ran down her back when she remembered the gleeful grin that had overtaken Zethrid’s face when she’d discovered Pidge trying to set up a bug to intercept in and outbound communication to the insurgent camp.

_“Well, well, well… Look what we have here. Are you lost, little bird?”_

Kosmo whined inquisitively and nudged her leg again when she hadn’t realised she’d begun to grip a handful of his fur.

“I’m fine… I just… I miss Lance,” she admitted quietly, feeling that familiar tugging ache in her chest when she thought about the youth she’d lost. “He knew how to keep our morale up, even if he was a giant goofball. I miss everyone, but…”

She’d been in love with him.

It was ironic to her, being in her early twenties and thinking she’d lost her youth. All things considered, her life should have just been beginning, but she felt like she’d been alive several decades already.

She swiped angrily at her eyes when her vision blurred from the tears pooling on her lower lids. When she sniffled a bit, Kosmo raised his head and stared at her.

“I’m okay. Really,” she muttered unconvincingly, smoothing a hand over the wolf’s soft head.

There was an odd twinkle in the space wolf’s eyes—a twinkle she recognised—and just as she realised what was about to happen, she suddenly felt herself tingling in that odd way when Kosmo was about to teleport. She barely had a chance to say anything when she was suddenly whisked out of her apartment’s bedroom and dropped in a noisy, crowded bar. It reeked of body odour and spilled whiskey and beer and it was hot and humid, a thin layer of sweat and sticky residue coating every surface. She was jostled forward by a waitress trying to serve drinks to a table in the back and tried desperately not to think about the thin layer of liquid she’d stumbled on with her bare feet.

All things considered, this was a seedy joint she would never let herself be caught dead in, but when she turned to Kosmo to yell at him to bring her back to her home, he shifted away from her and poofed away.

Pidge made a slight strangled sound in the back of her throat in total disbelief. She was trapped in this bar in nothing but her thin pyjamas, without her wallet, without her keys, and she had no idea where she even was. What had possessed Kosmo to bring her here of all places? She knew the wolf had been acting strangely because he missed Keith so much, but this was completely ridiculous. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

“Pidge…?”

The voice nearly stilled her heart and when she turned to the bar counter, sure enough, Lance was sitting there, just barely holding his drink on the rocks and staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. Other people were too, probably wondering how drunk they had to be if they really just saw some weird wolf teleporting into a bar.

Lance looked exactly the same, and yet, completely different. He was still handsome with the gorgeous skin and beautiful eyes, though the aura of fatigue surrounding him made him seem a lot older. A lot more weary. Like he’d lived a thousand lives and was ready to finally lie down and rest. She recognised the lost, empty look in his eyes, the same one she’d been sporting for the better part of the past year. But she knew his was because of Allura and it still pissed her off to see it now.

“Fancy seeing you here…” Pidge said to him, walking beside where he was sitting on his bar stool. He was still in his dress shirt and slacks and wearing a tie. Belatedly, Pidge realised she didn’t even know what Lance was doing for a living now. Last she’d heard from Hunk, he was a shift supervisor at a coffee shop.

He frowned at her, like he couldn’t believe that was the first thing she’d said to him in a quarter of a year of not seeing each other. “Why are you in your pyjamas?”

His speech was a little slurred, but his eyes weren’t that dazed. A little hazy, but the intensity of his focus on her wasn’t dulled. He still looked shellshocked, but amidst the surprise in his gaze, there was some lingering pain in the way he looked at her. It made guilt well up in her, and she looked away from him, staring at a bartender nearby as they filled a pitcher with some ale.

“I didn’t exactly plan to go to a bar, you know?” she supplied, gesturing down to her current state of dress. “Kosmo’s not the warning type.”

“I can’t believe…” Lance shook his head and licked his lips anxiously. “It’s been a while. So uh… how have you—”

“Can you buy me a drink?” Pidge cut him off, not willing to entertain that particular question _everyone_ seemed to want to ask her. “I might as well, right? Stuck at this bar until Kosmo decides to return so…”

Lance nodded slowly. “What do you want?”

“I’ll start with white wine. Riesling if they have it.”

They ended up finding a table close to the restrooms to sit at for privacy. Every time the door opened, the scent of piss and puke drifted in her nose, and the countertop was just sticky enough that she had to use a bit more force to pry the glass up but she ignored it in favour of downing her drinks fast to get to the point of tipsy where she would stop stressing about her environment. She’d originally planned to settle on wine, but she wound up taking a shot of Patrón and from there gave up on maintaining inhibitions. She wasn’t sure what she was drinking, just ordered the same thing as Lance until her head felt like she was breathing under water.

For a reunion conversation after not _really_ speaking to each other for roughly twelve months, it was surprisingly easier going than she thought it would be. Sure, it had started off stilted and disjointed, but it wasn’t hard jumping into old routines. Absolutely no conversation points were breached about Voltron or any of their friends or what their year post comatose Keith had been like. But despite that, they were able to make random small talk here and there about work and their families.

He was at the bar to relax and take the edge off apparently, only from the way the bartenders and waitresses seemed to know him by name and kept giving him pitying looks and seemed to know when to cut him off, she wondered just how often he’d been coming to this bar. But then again, she wasn’t one to talk considering the way she took some of her edge off.

“So what’s with the fancy duds?” she asked him, sitting more comfortably in her chair, a bit more relaxed now that a nice buzz had settled over her.

Lance looked a little sheepish as he swirled the dregs of his scotch in his glass. “I uh… had a date earlier tonight. Didn’t end the way I wanted it to, as you can clearly see, considering I’m drinking alone in a bar.”

“…Oh.” Something in her felt a sting of disappointment with his response. “I didn’t know you were dating again.”

“I’m not really dating.” He watched as two men started arguing over their game of darts until one of the burlier bartenders told them to shut the fuck up or get out. “It’s more like… a series of hook ups. I just wanted the company, you know? My life has been so different from before… I just… I guess I miss the physicality. I miss everything.”

Lance’s gaze was unfocused, glassy eyed and far off in a whole other universe.

She knew he was trying to talk about how things had gotten so bad for the Voltron paladins. The way they’d all separated. How hard it was dealing with the changes in their lives, but she seriously _didn’t_ want to talk about it. The wounds were still too fresh. A twinge of sharp pain went through her abdomen again, right below her scar and she subtly rubbed at it, forcing her expression to remain neutral so he couldn’t see it twisting in pain. She was not nearly drunk enough to broach this topic and on top of all that, he was messing up the good vibes.

Especially since she just knew somehow Lance wanted to talk about Allura. Three months after their break up and he was still obsessing over her.

Pidge didn’t respond to his comment, finishing off the rest of her whisky sour and reminding herself not to let herself get sucked into his orbit again. Seeing Lance had knocked free a lot of thoughts she’d buried deep down. Thoughts and feelings she never wanted to think about again.

“Pidge, listen, I—”

“We need another shot,” she said sharply, flagging over one of the waiters and pointedly ignoring Lance’s slightly hurt look.

She was only here because of Kosmo. This was a chance meeting and if it weren’t for the wolf, she would have continued on without Lance in her life for possibly the rest of her life. Whatever they needed to say to each other would have to wait some other day. That other day being never.

He seemed to get the hint after that and kept whatever stupid thoughts he’d had on their situation to himself. The one shot they’d downed became two became three until they were spilling on themselves and for just a second Pidge forgot about the damage the war had done to their lives.

But time got away from them and before she knew it, last calls were being made for alcohol. They both had work in the morning, but this bar was a good half hour drive from her apartment, it turned out. Kosmo hadn’t returned and she wasn’t about to risk getting stranded in an unfamiliar place. Lance lived nearby so since she didn’t even have her keys or her wallet to get a cab to take her home, he offered to let her crash at his place at least until day broke so she wouldn’t have to scramble for a way home at night while drunk.

It’d been an innocent enough suggestion and a nice offer for a friend, but Pidge felt weird about it because not only had they not talked in a while, but she also wasn’t even sure she could truly still call Lance a _friend_ anymore. An acquaintance, maybe, though the thought hurt her when they used to be so close. It was bittersweet to think that the paladins of Voltron who had been thick as thieves and had been through enormous trials together, went to the edge of the universe and back, and fought together on the brink of death so many times could be so far apart now in all ways possible. But acquaintance or not, part of her still thought it might be better to spend the extra money driving halfway across the city. They were being friendly to each other, but the vibe was slightly off.

Lance insisted. A favour for an old friend, he’d called it. So she gave in.

The cab ride to Lance’s was full of a restless, quiet tension and Pidge sat stiffly, her eyes focused on the road through the windshield even though her mind was swirling with a million thoughts at once. But she could feel’s Lance’s eyes on her, turning back every second as if he still couldn’t believe he was seeing her again when she’d pretty much cut contact with him and disappeared from his life. It made her senses prickle weirdly, anticipation settling under her skin.

He did live close to the bar and once the cabbie had dropped them off, she curled an arm around his waist when he pulled her into his side to shield her from the cold. They tripped their way up the stairs but even once in front of his door, he still refused to detangle himself even while he fumbled with his keys one handed to get the door open.

“Welcome to Casa Lance…” he muttered once the door was open and they’d gotten inside.

Pidge had never been in Lance’s apartment before, but she hadn’t expected the image she was met with. She’d thought it would be full of pictures and family heirlooms, a bright, vibrant place that reflected how Lance had been once upon a time, but his apartment seemed devoid of life somehow. Drab and dreary. Barely lived in, as if he didn’t spend enough time there to truly make it home.

Unless it became like that when Allura left.

“Can I get you anything?” Lance asked, tugging on his tie to loosen it up as he flicked on a standing lamp in his living room. “Water maybe?”

“…a shower and change of clothes might be nice,” she responded idly, suddenly hyperaware of his presence behind her.

Something had shifted in the air.

“…Katie.” She stilled from the way he’d said her name, loaded and full of hidden meaning, and she knew coming here had somehow been a bad idea. And yet, her heart still began to beat a little harder in her chest. “I miss you too, you know…”

She turned around slowly to face him where he was leaning against the doorway of his foyer. Though his eyes were glazed over with alcohol, she still understood the intent in his gaze. She knew where his mind was. Hers had drifted there too.

So when Lance stepped into her space and leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers, hot and urgent and needy, she didn’t fight it. Her initial surprise died when he caught her bottom lip and when he tilted his head to kiss her deeper, she gave in to it, winding her arms around his neck and rising to her toes to match the fervency of his kiss. There was an odd sense of desperation, and they never left too much space between them when they pulled away for quick breaths.

They stumbled into a shoerack in his hallway and Lance accidentally backed her up into his bedroom door before they got to his room. She landed on her back on his bed, Lance’s weight heavy on her, his hips cradled between her thighs, hands skimming down her body and his tongue stroking her own. Her mind was spinning, warning sirens blasting in her head that she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life, but his hand was in her underwear palming her cunt, and it felt too good to stop. Pidge’s arousal mounted sharply, but when a half whine left her mouth and she sank a hand into his hair, Lance stiffened and stopped, pulling away and looking entirely too anxious.

“Wait, Pidge… We shouldn’t do this. I’m not looking for anything serious and you’re my friend,” Lance said earnestly, though he hadn’t removed his hand from her pants.

“We’re barely friends anymore, Lance.” Lance’s gaze snapped to hers, partially affronted. “Stop thinking so much.”

She didn’t want this to end right now. Not when a surge of life was passing through her, coiling in her belly and reminding her of her failed attempt to finally relax earlier that night.

She _needed_ this. She needed to release the tension burning under her skin.

Lance could give it to her.

“Pretend I’m Allura,” Pidge said resolutely. Lance frowned, eyes dark and hooded, but it only fuelled Pidge more. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why he’d been having so many hook ups, and she fully intended to take advantage of it. “Lance… we need this.”

And to make her point, she lifted her hips off the mattress and pressed herself against the growing bulge in his pants. Lance’s erratic breath on her skin was confirmation enough for her and she tugged on his tie until she’d unwound it and gotten it off.

Pidge held the tie up to him. “Just cover your eyes. And pretend I’m Allura. Lance, please.”

She could see it in his eyes the moment he gave in, though his mouth was turned down in a frown when he took his tie from her and wrapped it around his eyes. When he’d blindfolded himself, she pulled his head back down to hers, melding their lips together. He couldn’t help his small groan when she traced his tongue with her own. And thankfully, Lance’s hesitation seemed to disappear when she reached down between them and unbuttoned his pants to pull him out of his boxers. She pumped him loosely, using his precum to slick up his rigid erection. His own fingers were clumsy on her folds, his breath shuddering against her lips, but it was enough for her that it wasn’t her own fingers for once and Pidge moaned, knowing she was soaking wet with need.

There wasn’t much talking after that. They somehow broke away long enough to get her pyjama pants off, and somewhere after Lance asking if she was ready and Pidge wrapping her legs up around his hips and Lance lining himself up with her entrance and Pidge sucking on his neck and Lance shifting aside her panties, he thrusted into her in one hard stroke.

Pidge inhaled sharply and winced a bit when there was a slight pinch as he imbedded himself fully in her. She dug her nails in his biceps, closing her eyes to get used to the odd pressure of her body stretching to accommodate the size of the intrusion. She breathed hard through her nose, counting backwards from ten from the odd tension of her body contracting around his length. It was a little more intense than she expected—but not altogether painful—because she was only used to her more shallow penetration on her own.

Lance stopped moving entirely and she watched his brows draw down in concern. “Pidge, were you…?”

She bit her lower lip and nodded, and then spoke when she realised he couldn’t see her. “Yes. Yeah. I’m fine though.”

He rubbed a soothing hand over her thigh. “I’m so sor—”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad. It just feels weird,” she panted, fighting off her urge to cringe. She readjusted under him, spreading her legs a little wider and wrapping an arm around his back. “Not weird bad necessarily. J-just keep moving.”

Lance acquiesced and started rocking in her at a languid pace to give her time to adjust. He made a small noise of appreciation when he finally pulled a bit out and rolled his hips forward. Lance’s mouth ended up on her skin, dropping mindless kisses on her neck and collar bone and chest. She breathed in and out slowly, focusing on his body pressing her into the mattress and his lips sucking under her jaw. She was full of him; he felt impossibly deep, hard and hot and pulsing.

Their rhythm was sloppy and uncoordinated, drunken motions unmatched but her head was too clouded with alcohol to care when he felt pleasant, as if completing her. She canted her hips up when Lance hitched one leg higher on his waist. The drag of his cock in a sweet, perfect spot suddenly had her exhaling breathlessly, staring up at the ceiling as a ripple of fire went through her.

“ _Ohhhh_ …. oh my God… right there, _please_ …”

Lance shifted his angle and timed his strokes with her hips rising up and they caught each other’s pace and suddenly her entire body felt like it was electrified. Like lightning was shooting down her back and pooling scorching heat right where Lance was hot and throbbing in her. Obscene noises escaped her lips as she tilted her head back when he pivoted, snapping his hips and in the process grinding against her clit. Her mind was blanking, too overcome with the intense sensation to think coherently, legs cramping up from the position, but she could already feel the pressure rapidly building. Lance was starting to release more ragged gasps and grunts, his motions jerkier, hands bruising her skin as he gripped her tight.

Somewhere in the back of her mind through her haze of drunken lust, she registered they were being careless and unsafe, but there was something burning in her core and she was focused solely on the release she desperately needed. Adrenaline was pounding through her veins and she whimpered, clutching him tighter as he fucked her hard into the mattress, breathing unsteady as he couldn’t hold back any longer.

 _This_ was it.

This was exactly what she needed and the intensity of the ripples of pleasure in her abdomen made her pant for breath, curling her toes as she hurtled towards something sweet and overwhelming.

Lance thrusted a few more times and then groaned into her neck as his rhythm faltered entirely, abandoning himself to his climax. Pidge’s legs quivered as her body cried out for completion and with a trembling hand, she slid her fingers to her abdomen and pressed them against her scar.

A sharp crescendo of lightning hot, scorching pain tore through her and Pidge choked on her breath, eyes closed as tears pooled under her eyelids. Something in her spasmed and convulsed and then she was seized by a rush of fire that stilled her as the tight coil in her core very sharply and suddenly snapped.

Vaguely, as the ringing in her ears finally started to settle did she realise Lance had gotten his breathing in check as he led a gentle trail of kisses up to her mouth. He pressed an extremely tender kiss to her lips, so softly and so affectionate and warm that Pidge’s heart stuttered in her chest and she had to choke back a whimper.

“Allura…”

Lance had breathed out the name pitifully against her lips, soft enough that she could have missed it if she wasn’t paying attention, but she was, and he might as well have shouted it in her ear.

They both froze completely still.

Shame and disgust and gloom and a misery she thought wasn’t affecting her anymore crashed back into her full force. Pidge swallowed down the tight feeling in her throat and stared off blankly to the side, chewing on her lower lip. Out of her periphery, she could see Lance’s horrified expression as he ripped off the blindfold, but she didn’t say anything despite feeling him watching her. He pulled out of her slowly, and she cringed at the squelching as his warmth disappeared, leaving her entirely cold.

Her eyes stung with tears she refused to shed and she fisted the covers under her, feeling dirty from the way he’d touched her and the cum leaking out from between her legs and dampening the sheets under her skin. For fuck’s sake, she hadn’t even noticed the photo of Allura staring at Pidge from his desk. She let out a humourless, incredulous laugh.

This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

Lance licked his lips. “Pidge—”

“Get off of me, Lance.” Her voice trembled as she pushed on his shoulders and slowly peeled herself up from his sheets, cringing at how sticky her thighs felt. That fantastic adrenaline she’d felt had whooshed away in one fell swoop and yet again, she was left feeling hollow, exhausted as if she needed to sleep for years. “I need to go.”

“You’re too drunk and live too far to leave right now.” He stayed her by grasping her shoulders.

“Trust me, I’m sobered up enough to get home.” It wasn’t true but she just needed to not be anywhere near him right now. “I don’t know what came over me. But this was a mistake and I need to leave. Let me go.”

“It wasn’t…” Lance sighed as his face twisted reluctantly in agreement. He couldn’t even look her in the eye. “I don’t think you should be by yourself.”

She didn’t respond, staring at the scuff marks on the wood finish of his bedroom floor and trying to keep her breathing steady despite every ounce of her body telling her to cry. She clenched her fists as she peeled off her drenched underwear and tossed it to a random corner. It hit the ground with a disgusting noise from the moisture.

“It’s fine. I’ve gotten through worse on my own, right?” She’d tried for some levity, but she knew it didn’t hit its mark.

Lance looked heartbroken.

“No. _Don’t_ leave. Just stay here. I’ll sleep on the couch or something and you can take my bed. I have other sheets.” His soft touch on her shoulder and the concern in his voice for her nearly made her break down in tears. “Pidge, what happened to y—”

“Can you stay here with me? In your room?” She cut him off, shifting out of his hold and giving him a fake smile she knew looked insincere and jarring on her face, but she hated the way he could still read her moods so easily. She wasn’t ready to talk about what happened. Because she knew Lance would hold onto it and let his guilt consume him. “I just… I don’t like the cold.”

Lance nodded. “Yeah. Anything.”

“Where’s your bathroom?”

“Down the hall. I’ll get you a change of clothes.”

Pidge took her time cleaning up, but even she could not find respite from her thoughts and disappointment. His bathroom had remnants of Allura everywhere. The hand soap to use was a lavender fragrance Pidge had frequently smelt on Allura. There was hair product and some make up left in the pull out drawers. The pink bathrobe on a hook gathering dust.

Pidge should have known better.

This had been an absolutely dreadful idea and now the heartache she’d thought she’d gotten over had come hurtling back.

Lance had an old tshirt of his ready for her to use once she’d made sure she’d wiped herself clean of any remnants of their stupid hook up. While he went to go lock up and put the dirty sheets in his laundry hamper, Pidge made quick work of removing her pyjama top and pulling on the tshirt, taking care to avoid brushing up on the wide array of scars marring her skin.

Once Lance had returned, she climbed in next to him, tentatively sliding closer when he opened his arms up for her. She curled up in his chest as he pulled the covers above them, wishing she could feel some relief from the comfort that Lance used to exude for her. But now all she felt was the bitterness from her long suffering torment over his relationship with Allura.

After he turned off the lights, she waited until she heard Lance’s breathing even out in sleep before she finally let the tears drop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just letting you know, I changed the warning at the top to "graphic depictions of violence" because I forgot to before

_Freezing cold water suddenly splashed on Pidge’s face and she startled awake, gasping for breath, flailing her legs and thinking she was about to drown for a second._

_“I’m impressed. She’s been holding out pretty well so far.”_

_“You think she’s going to last all night, Zeth? She’s bleeding a lot.”_

_Pidge stared up at them blearily, rasping in pain as her body continued to shake. She couldn’t even move her shackled arms to check on the throbbing gash of a wound in her abdomen. Her toes were barely touching the ground and her arms and shoulders were burning from being suspended for so long. In fact, from the soreness of her right shoulder, she was pretty sure a ligament was torn. She could feel the blood dripping from the open wound right below her navel, hitting the ground in rhythmic drops. She focused on that sound, trying not to think about how every breath she took made her abdomen burst out in sharp spasms of pain._

_“Th-they’re… gonna… find… me…” Pidge slurred out, her gaze growing hazy as she dropped her head back against the mouldy wall behind her head. “You… w-won’t win…”_

_Ezor laughed with glee. “They won’t find you. But you’ll tell us what we want to know.”_

_“I’ll… n-never… tell you… where… the—”_

_She never finished her statement because Ezor brought her leg up and kneed Pidge right in the stomach with a malicious grin. Pidge screamed, jerking wildly in her hold. The agonising pain bit through her body and she coughed up blood, nearly gagging from the metallic taste in her mouth. Pidge went limp, whimpering in agony and breathing hard to catch her breath though every slight motion made her body twitch and jerk._

_“We can do this all night, little bird,” Zethrid said ominously, holding some sort of rod-like device that was charging with electricity from where she was perched on a wall. She pushed off the chamber walls and slowly approached Pidge until she was smirking right in front of her. “Just tell us where your Marmora friends are guarding that EMP bomb your brother made and we’ll let you go.”_

_Pidge swirled the liquid in her mouth until she’d formed a good enough wad and with as much energy as she could muster, lifted her head and spat the blood and saliva right in Zethrid’s face. It splatted onto her scarred eye and then began to drip down her face._

_“Fuck… you…”_

_Ezor rose an impressed brow, snickering at what happened. “Oooh, good aim.”_

_Zethrid wiped the blood off her eye and face slowly, a sneer growing on her lips. “I like you. You’ve got a lot of spunk.”_

_And then she jammed the electric rod right into Pidge’s open wound in her abdomen and set off the charge._

Pidge sat up abruptly awake with a cry, her breathing coming out in desperate pants for air as she lashed out, terrified. Her heart was pounding insanely hard in her chest and every inch of her body was covered in sweat. She licked her lips, glancing around the room with wild eyes, trying to figure out where the hell she was. When she realised she was in a bedroom and not that cold chamber that smelled of rotting flesh and blood and excrement, her panic began to subside just a bit. Slowly, she came to. Slowly, she was no longer looking at Zethrid and Ezor’s gleeful smiles.

“It’s only a dream, Katie…” she murmured to herself, rocking back and forth until her intense shaking subsided. “It was just a dream… You’re safe. You’re on Earth. You’re alive. Matt’s alive. Keith is still alive…”

There was a soft, sleepy groan beside her and she froze still as Lance shifted and turned over to face the other wall, muttering something under his breath in his sleep. She didn’t move one inch, staring down at him and holding her breath until she was sure he’d gone back into his deep sleep. If he woke up, he would see her and then they would have to talk.

And that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Especially because she knew he’d want to discuss them sleeping together and really, she just wanted to forget that had ever happened.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, they must have shifted because she was no longer in his arms and she was glad for that. It would make leaving much easier. She needed to get out of here. And _now._ She would put this crap behind her. There was no way she was ever talking to Lance again, especially not after having sex with him.

And for what?

Some short term gratification to get some sleep? Her nightmare had been much worse this time, so lucid that she could still feel the remnants of the electricity crackling under her skin. She could still smell that horrid scent of her own skin burning.

And she knew it was because of all the stupid emotions that had risen to the surface and intensified from seeing Lance.

What the hell had she been thinking?

“Goddammit…” She gripped her abdomen and tried her breathing exercises until she was no longer feeling the unpleasant discomfort through her belly.

A quick glance at Lance’s nightstand clock told her it was about thirty minutes before sunrise, and she didn’t know how early he had to get to work, but she wasn’t taking any chances if he had an alarm set for early or something.

Pidge stepped carefully out of his bed so as not to jostle it and tried to ignore the cold seeping out from his wood floors and freezing her feet. He had a hoodie on the floor so she grabbed that so she wouldn’t freeze on her way home and then stole two twenties from his wallet so she could pay for her cab ride home. She had no pants or shoes and she still felt woozy from the alcohol and her entire body—especially between her legs—felt sore and tight and the muscles overused, but self-preservation took precedence and right now, it would be in her best interests to be alone. She snatched up his phone and crept out of his bedroom to call the cab company he’d used the night before to get them to his place. 

Once she’d secured a ride home, she hightailed it out of there, deciding to say goodbye to Lance for good.

 

…

 

She’d ended up having to wake up her landlord and get him to use his master key to help her back in her place. The crotchety old man was considered a notorious asshole, but he hadn’t given her too much grief about her dilemma. It was probably because she kept to herself and was not a disruptive tenant.

Kosmo wasn’t in her apartment once she got inside and she figured he had probably spent the night in Keith’s hospital room.

It was better this way though.

Pidge was mentally and physically drained and being by herself was the best option. She was sorely tempted to call in sick for work to avoid going in for the day, but the director of the tech project was an old friend of her father’s and her father had vouched for her reliability. Not to mention, the director would likely tell Sam about her absence which would bring about even more issues in the long run. The last thing she wanted was her mother and father to get all overprotective over some made up illness.

As Pidge trudged into her bedroom to relax a bit before she would have to start getting ready for work, her phone began to ring. It was her mother and Pidge slumped onto her bed, having forgotten they had scheduled their video call to yesterday evening and Pidge had missed it. She groaned in annoyance, wishing her mother could just give up with checking up on her every week and leave her alone. Not that she hated her mother, but she wanted as limited contact as possible right now. Her mom was just a little too overbearing for Pidge’s taste and she needed her space. Plus she always seemed to know when something was off and Pidge tried her damned hardest to hide her issues, so being figured out so quickly was a true irritant.

She ran quick hands through her hair to get the knots out and slapped her cheeks to make herself look a little more alive and then pasted a fake, slightly awkward smile on her lips as she answered the call.

“Can we make this quick, Mom? I need to get ready for work.”

_“Well, hello to you too. You missed my call last night and didn’t respond so I got a little worried.”_

“Sorry. I went out with… a friend and left my phone at home,” Pidge lied. 

It was much easier than explaining the full story.

_“I didn’t know you had friends who lived nearby. Which friend?”_

Pidge grit her teeth. “Does it really matter? We went out for drinks and then I came home tired and fell asleep. It’s just a random night out. Doesn’t have to be picked apart.”

 _“Okay. Sorry,”_ Colleen said in a placating manner, grimacing a bit, and Pidge felt a little bad that she’d snapped at her mom like that. _“I just wanted to know since you rarely talk about your social life and this is the first time you’ve offered anything. I hope you had fun at least.”_

“Yeah…” Pidge responded, looking off to the side of her room where she’d left a pile of dirty laundry she’d yet to sort out.

Could she really say she’d had fun though? Drinking with Lance had been tense and awkward because there were too many taboo topics. Sleeping with him had been out of necessity and while it had felt good at the time, all she felt was regret now that was clawing at her heart.

_“…have you been getting enough rest, Katie? Eating enough? You look a little pale. And your face is a little thinner than the last time I saw you.”_

Pidge sighed and leaned back against her pillows, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at her mother’s usual probing. “What did I tell you about worrying too much about me?”

 _“Well for one, the term you used was ‘riding my nuts’ which was very vulgar,”_ Colleen responded dryly.

“Mom.”

 _“Sorry, Katie.”_ Across the screen, Colleen sighed and gave her daughter a sheepish smile. _“I can’t help it. I’m a mother. I’m predisposed to worry. Especially since my daughter got so badly—”_

“I came out of it okay. I’m good now.”

Pidge hoped she’d said it with enough conviction that her mother would believe it true. Pidge had gotten good at that. Faking cheer and smiling like her life wasn’t one sharp tug from falling apart at the seams. She was just lucky her parents lived in another city. She’d never be able to deceive her if she saw her in person.

_“By the way, how are your therapy sessions? I haven’t heard any major updates in a while.”_

“Well, I’ve been doing better so there hasn’t really been much in the way of breakthroughs.” Pidge shrugged nonchalantly, though she instantly felt ashamed for lying to her mother. “I’ve been thinking… maybe it’s time to cut back on sessions. Save you some money.”

_“You’ve been through something traumatic. I don’t think it’s a good time to—”_

“Like I said,” Pidge shot back, her voice clipped and eyes narrowed as her irritation mounted, “I’ve been doing better. For _a_ _year_. I don’t really think I need it anymore.”

Colleen looked a little nonplussed, but otherwise didn’t object to what Pidge had said again. _“A-Are you sure, sweetheart? We may not be in the same city, but you know I’ll do anything to be there for my baby girl.”_

Pidge exhaled slowly and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “I’m not a child, Mom. I can take care of myself.”

 _“I know, but you’ll always be my baby.”_ When Pidge didn’t respond, Colleen’s shoulders slumped and she looked away from the screen. _“Matt says he’s been trying to reach out. Check up on you. He thinks you’re avoiding him.”_

Pidge bit down on her tongue, using the feeling to keep herself from shouting at her mother to stop it. She was so fucking sick of being coddled. She was tired of Matt constantly showing up trying to make amends for what happened to her. It wasn’t his fault. She didn’t blame him and she was sick of him feeling guilty all the time. She’d joined the rebels and the Blade’s mission of her own accord. Getting captured was her own fault. Everything that followed was a direct consequence of her weakness so really, the only person she could blame for the disaster was herself.

Hence why she’d moved away from her family in the first place. She needed space to breathe and she couldn’t very well do that if they spent all their time fussing over her. They thought she couldn’t see the pitying looks they gave her, the worried glances they exchanged with each other when they thought she wasn’t looking, the hushed conversations when they believed her out of earshot.

But Matt’s belief of a personal responsibility was the most aggravating thing of all. No matter what she said to him, he always looked like he was on the verge of crying every time he looked at her and the guilt in his expression was too much to handle.

She was managing.

Maybe not the best way she could, but managing still. Day by day. There was no need for therapy and quite frankly, she found it useless because none of those psychologists would ever truly understand how to deal with someone thrown into an unforgiving war before finishing puberty. They couldn’t handle the horror stories and she could always see the badly hidden shock in their gazes when she told them just what happened to her in the two days she’d been in captivity.

_“Katie? Katie, you’re zoning out.”_

Pidge blinked and focused her eyes back on her mother’s concerned, pixelated face. “I need to get ready for work now.”

Colleen sighed, chewing anxiously on a thumbnail. _“…Alright. I’ll let you go then. Try to get some rest tonight, honey. And make sure you’re writing in that journal your therapist gave you.”_

“I get it,” Pidge said curtly, indignant emotion welling up in her chest.

Could her mom please stop trying to micromanage her life?

_“Your father says hello as well. And give my regards to the others. And maybe try to meet up with Matt when he comes to Earth next? I hate to see you guys so distanced when you used to be so close.”_

Her throat tightened as she breathed slowly to keep her anger at bay. “I’m hanging up, Mom.”

_“I love you, darl—”_

Pidge cut the call off before her mother had even finished the last bit of her statement. She exhaled shakily, eyes prickling with furious tears and rubbed her face with tired hands. She was so utterly sick of these conversations, of having to feign some degree of happiness, of constantly having to reassure her mother she was okay. It was taxing and exhausting, but if she didn’t, the alternative would be Colleen determining her not okay and possibly moving out to Pidge to take care of her which was decidedly worse.

She stripped off Lance’s clothes and took a scalding hot shower and scrubbed thoroughly to cleanse herself of any of his essence left on her. She hadn’t had a chance to last night and she felt entirely dirty. The water burned her, aggravating the scars where she was extremely sensitive where certain wounds hadn’t healed well. She whimpered in pain and started sobbing softly, overcome with disappointment and irritation and so, so very tired. She was sick of everything and everyone. Why was everyone so obsessed with her state of being?

So what she’d been through something unpleasant?

She was doing fine.

 

…

 

By the time she’d gotten herself together and her bag ready for work, she was a handful of minutes from having to leave otherwise she wouldn’t beat traffic and she’d be late. Honestly, she did have enough time to grab something quick to eat for breakfast, but she was too lazy to care. It wasn’t like she had much food in her apartment anyway. Besides, it didn’t matter much considering she didn’t tend to have much of an appetite most days.

She got her stuff and dragged her feet around. Work should have been more enjoyable, and she did like working with tech—this was her dream career—but she hated having to talk to her colleagues. She was not a fan of having to don that mask of a smile for hours, pretending to be sociable and somewhat friendly to people she neither wanted to talk to nor gave a rat’s ass about.

As she was checking to make sure she had her keys and badge, someone rang the doorbell. She sighed, heading to her foyer to answer it. If it was one of her annoying neighbours here to try to get her to sign another dumb petition about the upgrades to the central heating in the complex, she would slam her door in their face without a word.

But instead of that dumbass Fred (or Ted or Ned or whatever his fucking name was with his clipboard and that overly chipper smile), it was Lance, looking put out and sheepish all at once and holding a to-go box. The smell coming from it was heavenly and her stomach let out a pitiful little gurgle.

Pidge’s breath caught a bit in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Lance tried for a small smile, but she didn’t change her blank expression. “I brought you some breakfast.”

“How do you even know where I live?”

As far as she was concerned, the only one who knew was Hunk and that was only because he’d helped her find this place when she’d desperately needed to move out of her parents’ home.

“Hunk told me a while ago… I just never visited.” Lance winced and rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his that it seemed he’d never broken. He looked ashamed of himself and apologetic, but before he could continue on, she cut him off.

“And you suddenly decided you should? I’ve lived in this place for a year, you know?” Pidge responded tartly. “Seriously, what do you _want_? You’re wasting my time.”

Lance’s brows drew down, but he still didn’t look particularly bothered by her attitude and she felt the beginnings of true anger stir up in her. “Like I said, I brought you some food. You need to eat. You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight. When was the last time you ate something anyway?”

Pidge set a hand on her hip and shifted further into the space of the opening of the doorway so he would get the hint that he wasn’t welcome and that he needed to leave. “And you would know that how? It’s not like you’ve seen me for months.”

“Hunk told me you haven’t been okay.”

“What would Hunk know either? He’s only on Earth every other three months.”

“Pidge.” Lance was starting to look a little vexed now. Good. “Can you just let me in so we can talk?”

“How amusing,” she said with a wry smile on her lips. “When _I_ wanted to talk, you were always so busy with your precious relationship that there was never any time for that. But now that your girlfriend is gone you suddenly have time for me?”

“That’s not true, and you know it.” But he couldn’t hide the remorse in his eyes.

Pidge rolled her eyes in disinterest. It was easy for him to say that considering he was so oblivious to anyone else when he got his happy ending once they’d defeated Sendak. It had only taken him and Allura a few months before they’d gotten together and once that had happened, they were lost in their own world. They had each other and that was all that seemed to matter to them.

That had been the main reason Pidge decided to join Keith and Matt. At the time, she’d thought it would be a good way to take her mind off of things.

How wrong she’d been.

“Go away, Lance,” Pidge said decisively. “You got what you wanted from me. So why are you here?”

“Just let me in, Pidge.”

When she stayed silent and didn’t budge from the doorway, Lance walked right in her space and stepped around her, entering of his own accord and basically forcing her to move. Pidge spun around indignantly from his complete disregard of what she’d said.

“Can you get out?! I have to leave for work soon.”

He dropped the box on her table and folded his arms across his chest, a brow cocked, unimpressed. “No.”

“Fine. I’m leaving. Have a nice day,” she spat.

And then Lance moved and pressed his palm flat on her door and shut it before she could even turn. Pidge took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and it took everything in her to not scream in frustration.

“I’m not leaving until you put some food in you,” Lance said impatiently. “Pidge, you need to eat.”

“Lance…” she growled in a warning tone.

“Can you just listen to me?!” he near shouted, completely fed up. “I know you keep saying you’re fine, but holy shit, you do not look fine, okay? Can you _please_ just put something in your stomach?! I swear I’ll leave after that.”

She glowered up at him in the abrupt silence that followed, but he stood his ground. Growling under her breath, she dropped her bag and stormed over to her table. Pidge yanked out a chair and plopped into it, giving Lance a pointed look as she opened up the box. She didn’t know where he’d gotten it from, but it was a cheesy breakfast quesadilla that smelled so divine that for a second Pidge almost forgot that she was supposed to be mad. He was right. Most days she ate a banana or an apple (if she even remembered to eat) and that was pretty much it. Her stomach growled again in anticipation and begrudgingly, she picked up a quarter and took a bite. It’d been a long time since she ate anything that deliciously satisfying, but she refused to show him any sort of reaction.

“Happy?” Pidge said around a mouthful of food.

Lance took a seat across from her, a nervous little smile playing on the corner of his lips. “I’d be happier if we could talk. We kind of need to about last night. Or I guess earlier today if you really think about it…”

“Which part did you want to talk about? The fact that you took my virginity? The fact that you came inside me when we fucked without a condom? Or maybe the fact that you called out Allura’s name even though I was under you?” Pidge grinned, all teeth, sardonic and irritated because she knew exactly what he was about to say from the apprehensive look on his face.

Lance grimaced from her tone and averted his gaze when she stared daggers at him.

“If you’re about to try to say sorry, you can keep your bullshit apologies to yourself because I know yesterday meant nothing to you. It meant nothing to me too. We’re good. So all this?” She gestured to the breakfast and to him. “You don’t need to do this to try to make some sort of amends. I’ve already decided to forget this whole shit even happened.”

Lance didn’t outright respond at first, but the apology and regret in his gaze told her that he definitely agreed with her about it meaning nothing and _that_ cut into her heart like a sharpened knife. Pidge set down the piece she’d been holding and pushed the box away, her appetite gone and nausea rising in its stead as her stomach roiled in discomfort. She wanted to gag.

“I didn’t come here to make amends,” he finally said quietly, that same weird lingering pain in his blue eyes that she’d seen at the bar. “I came to make sure you’re okay.”

“And as you can clearly see, I’m fine,” she lied, shooting up from her seat. Her voice was shaking and she desperately hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Living out my life, trying to get my shit done. Same old, same old. One foot in front of the other, as my therapist says.”

Not that she’d gone to see her therapist in more than half a year.

Lance stood up too, walking around the table and approaching her. “Pidge.”

She ignored him and tried to bypass him entirely to grab up the bag she’d left in the foyer, but he caught her arm before she could move too far.

“Pidge, can you at least look at me?”

She stopped short of his face and stared at his Adam’s apple. “ _What_? I ate a bit, didn’t I? Why are you still here?”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

The words had a lot of weight behind them, and she knew he wasn’t necessarily talking about their fucked up little tryst the night before. And it made her heart pinch in her chest as if someone had wrapped a hand around it and squeezed.

“You didn’t,” she denied sharply, her voice coming out in a whisper because her throat had tightened up and she could feel the moisture gathering in her eyes again.

“You were one of my best friends, but I’ve been so caught up in my own life I didn’t realise you—”

“You’ve done your good deed for the day. You can go now, Lance.” Her voice wavered though she willed it not to. She ran an aggravated hand through her hair. She was sick of feeling this damn heartache and she wished Lance would just leave. “Let me go.”

“Pidge,” Lance said irately with a frown. “I’m trying to—”

“I have to go to work, so please just _leave_ , Lance!” She snapped her arm out of his hold. “If you really wanted to talk, you could have just texted me. You still have my number. It hasn’t changed from the ten months since you last deigned to have a real conversation with me.”

Lance hesitated but didn’t finish whatever statement he was about to say to her. Pidge expected him to turn towards the door to leave and give up. But instead he crowded her, looping his arms around her and tugging her into a tight hug. Pidge stiffened immediately, eyes blown wide at the unexpected physical contact and for a moment almost panicked. He was really warm, despite how cold the air was outside.

“I haven’t been a good friend, Pidge,” he murmured softly in her hair, hunched over the slightest. “I’m sorry. If you need me now, I’ll be here.”

She exhaled slowly, closing her eyes and hating that she couldn’t help but feel some sort of comfort from his warmth. She hated how nostalgic his subdued ocean scent made her feel. And she hated that the gentle words had settled somewhere in her stomach and made her a little lightheaded.

“Lance…”

Lance pulled away slightly and their gazes met. They stared at each other in silence, something charged in the air, and she wasn’t sure who the first to move was, but he leaned down and she rose up on her toes and their lips met in a slow, slightly confusing kiss. It lasted all of a few seconds before Lance broke away with a sharp inhale, conflicted, and giving her a pitying look.

A look that made her go completely cold.

That familiar fury she’d felt earlier came back full force.

“Pidge… I can’t.”

“Because you miss Allura, right?” She snorted cruelly, dislodging herself from his hold. “You’re going around fucking everything with two legs to get over her, and yet _I’m_ a problem?”

Lance’s brows drew down, the conflicted look on his face sharpening. There was a well of emotion in his eyes and he was looking _through_ her, but he wasn’t looking at her and it made something sharp and ugly rise up in Pidge’s heart.

That was it.

She never wanted to see Lance again.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Lance. You’re lost without her.” Pidge planted a hand on his chest and shoved hard, backing him up into the doorway before crowding his space. His brows were high on his forehead, even though he was trying hard not to show his anxiety by keeping his expression carefully guarded. “You’re desperate and lonely and you miss the nights you had a warm body to wake up next to. You miss being able to feel her warmth around you. And you desperately want that again. But she’s not here so you use people and then throw them out like a tissue, just like you were going to do with me. Except you couldn’t go through with it, because I used to be your friend. Am I wrong?”

Lance looked utterly sick as he stared at the ground but he didn’t say anything to deny it, and it was like a slap in the face in some ways. But then again, she’d used him too.

“We both just wanted to _feel_ , and it worked, didn’t it? Even if the high didn’t last long enough.” A sardonic sneer grew on her face. “And we both want to feel that again.”

“Pidge, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you can use me.” His gaze shot up to meet hers, appalled, and Pidge simply smiled in a mocking way with a shrug. “You’re not finding satisfaction on your own and I have needs I can’t fulfil by myself. We can help each other numb the pain. And it won’t mean a thing.”

Lance’s eye twitched like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard her say. “That’s… _insane_. We can’t do that to each other.”

“Aren’t you tired, Lance? Aren’t you tired of feeling so empty all the time? Like there’s something missing?”

No matter her efforts to try to drive him away, there was still truth to her statement and she had to break eye contact for a moment because that unpleasant dissatisfaction had coiled up in her chest again.

“I know, Pidge. Believe me, I know. But whatever you’re suggesting isn’t the way to go here,” he replied softly, setting both hands on her shoulders and giving her a small squeeze.

She lifted her gaze and gave him a nasty smirk. “Didn’t you just say that if I needed you now, you’d be here?”

Lance tensed immediately at her words. He didn’t respond, but the outrage and disappointment in his eyes made her simultaneously want to cry and cheer because for once, he was actually looking at her and not through her as if the only thing on his mind would ever be Allura. His hands dropped from her shoulders and he glared down at her furiously, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Those were your words verbatim. I’m just repeating them,” Pidge said, adopting an apathetic expression even though it felt like pieces of her were breaking all over again from the way he was looking at her. Like he was asking what the fuck was wrong with her. Like he was utterly disgusted that someone like her even existed. “And I need you right now so why the hesitation?”

He didn’t say anything, just shook his head in revulsion and disbelief.

_Yes. Just like that. Keep looking at me like I’m a worthless piece of shit. And then never talk to me again._

“Should’ve known you were all talk and no sincerity. What did I expect?” Pidge took a step away from him with a scoff as she pretended to pick at the fingernails of one hand. “I need to leave for work. So… you can go now.”

“Make sure you eat today,” Lance finally said offhand, turning to open her door and looking all too eager to walk out of her apartment.

He didn’t look back.

Her face dropped and Pidge stood in her doorway, staring after him as a heavy weight settled in her chest. It felt a little hard to breathe and she tried hard to swallow the lump in her throat down. She’d probably lost Lance for good now, even as a somewhat old friend, but it was for the best. She didn’t want him being part of her life when everything about him reminded her of one of the worst times of her life.

She grabbed her bag and began to leave for work.  

“Good work, Pidge…” she muttered shakily under her breath, sniffling a bit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that feeling when you no longer give a fuq about finals and start writing fanfiction instead of studying ^^;;

For the umpteenth time, Pidge checked the time on her desktop computer, yawning into her sleeve as she stood to stretch. It was well past dinner hour, and part of her lamented the fact that she hadn’t grabbed something small to nibble on at least for something to munch on while she worked. Her stomach was kind of hurting. But she ignored the small twinge of hunger her body gave off and decided to continue her research at her apartment.

For hours, she’d been attempting to calibrate the parameters of their lab’s wormhole ray. She understood the mechanics behind the physics to bend and warp time and space to make it possible, but it was slow going figuring out how to inject the right amount of energy needed to allow for this rift without overdoing it and causing an explosion. Or worse, forming a black hole and getting Earth sucked in. But it was hard when they’d had a literal magical being opening portals for them in the past.

Ever since Allura left, they’d been putting in months of work just to replicate her wormhole production, but something fundamental was missing. And they couldn’t figure out what.

As someone who’d had ample exposure to alien tech, aliens, and specifically Allura, Pidge had been chosen to spearhead the project but it was difficult to work on and it didn’t help that she was fatigued and had no energy day to day. The calculations were missing something key and while she was confident they could create a wormhole that could teleport people on earth to other places on earth, that wasn’t enough and definitely wouldn’t do enough to help their desire to connect with aliens in other universes. All they needed to do was figure out how to cut the travel distance and time down, otherwise it could take years to get to those places.

“Katie Holt?”

Pidge glanced up as she finished packing away her laptop and met the gaze of some guy in a lab coat who had his hand outstretched to her to shake it. She nearly gave him a look of disinterest before she remembered she was supposed to be courteous and somewhat friendly when at work. But still, she didn’t know how he’d gotten clearance to enter the lab when it was well after hours and only people in high positions regarding the project had access this late.

Pidge had let their lab’s receptionist leave early even though Pidge hadn’t finished up the last of her work for the day, but the fact that he’d been able to get in at all was suspicious.

“How did you get in here?”

“Oh, sorry.” He grinned sheepishly, sticking his hands in his lab coat pockets. “I’m Gabriel Basco. I’m an old cadet colleague of your brother’s from years back. Worked in tech and communications together until he got accepted for the Kerberos mission. He used to be my biggest rival. I met you years ago at the launch for the Kerberos mission, but you probably don’t remember me.”

She honestly didn’t. His name was vaguely familiar, but even then it wasn’t striking any chords. Plus, during that launch party, she’d been way more focused on marvelling at all the big names in attendance and trying to make a good impression so that she might capture their interest. But then again, she tended to categorise her life in pre and post Voltron days and some of the things that had happened to her as a paladin were so atrocious that pre-Voltron days seemed arbitrary now.

It was like a whole other life for her.

“Nice to meet you then, Gabriel, I guess.” She rose an inquisitive brow as she picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “So again: how did you get in here?”

“Uh, right. Well, I was getting a tour of the design lab and someone told me you were still in so I wanted to meet you. I’ve been assigned a transfer from the Garrison general tech and communications division. I think Iverson sent Dr. Briggs an email who sent you an email with the details,” Gabriel explained. Pidge did remember skimming over some email from their boss that she hadn’t really given the time of day. “I was recognised for my studies in integrated curvatures and how that relates to bending energy.

“In my last project, I was experimenting with transferring the bending energy around objects in order to transport them through different closed and open systems. It was a little out of the box for normal tech, so Briggs thought I would be better suited working on something a little more complicated with you. So I was hired to work as a member of your team in an effort to create the same effect of the wormholes of your friend Allura. My theories might not work in practice, but I’m confident that I can be of use to you to recreate the effect. I hope we can get along.”

Pidge hadn’t talked to Allura in so long she didn’t know if the Altean would even consider her a _friend_ anymore, but she smiled and nodded anyway. His theory would definitely come in handy; she needed more outward thinking people who wouldn’t shy away from tackling complicated concepts. It made her head hurt sometimes, but she could honestly say despite all she’d dealt with in the past two years of her life, science was one of the few things that remained constant and even a little bit comforting.

“Well, there’s only six of us—seven with you now—on this team. Right now we’re focusing on creating smaller scale reactions in closed vacuums to see if our calculations work,” Pidge explained. “We’ve hit a small dead end with generating a strong source of natural energy like Allura’s inner magic, but if you have anything to add, please do bring it up with us whenever you wish. Of course, you’ll have access to our entire facilities with your badge, and feel free to read up on everything we’ve done so far. Your ideas and work sound great; I’m looking forward to reading about them.”

“Awesome.” Gabriel stood up a little bit straighter, his smile wide and looking pleased with himself. “So what should I call you, boss woman? Ma’am? Mrs. Holt?”

“Mrs. Holt is my mother. Also, I’m not married.” She gave him a dry look. “Look, I’m twenty-two, not a middle aged woman. Just call me Katie.”

Not to mention she was younger than everyone she worked with by quite a handful of years and it made her uncomfortable when they addressed her as if she was a seasoned professional. In some ways, she was, but it still made her feel weird being spoken to with so much deference.

“That’s impressive. You’ve achieved a lot in such a short time.” He whistled, walking with her as she headed to the doors of the lab to leave. “Most people your age are still in college.”

Pidge stared at the alert her phone got with a slight frown before swiping the message away. The only people who texted her this late at night were her parents. “Yeah, well… most people my age didn’t get abducted by a sentient lion and end up battling demon aliens. At least the knowledge I gained from the experience is worth the years of therapy…”

“Hah. You’re funny.” Gabriel’s smile turned a little crooked, his russet gaze taking a slight mischievous edge that Pidge recognised almost immediately. On top of that, he was leaning just a little bit. “Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself before my official induction to the team tomorrow. It’s an absolute honour to work with such a beautiful, successful, genius scientist who’s made so many advancements for space travel. I’m looking forward to working together.”

“Laying it on a little thick there…” Pidge replied as she gave him a weird look.

She wasn’t a stranger to people flirting with her from time to time—though she really wished they wouldn’t—but she found it odd that he was so obvious about it not five minutes into meeting her. It was a bold move considering she was technically his superior and part of her found it unpleasant while the other part of her was mostly indifferent.

“I’m not wrong though. But I apologise if I made you uncomfortable.”

She gave him a blank look. “Huh.”

When they had left and Pidge made sure the lab doors were locked, he held out his hand again. This time, she did shake it, if only to be courteous because she just wanted this conversation to be over so she could go home and attempt to get these calculations solved.

“Hope I can live up to your expectations.” He smiled wide and easy, and Pidge wondered how quickly she might get irritated with him. He seemed like he hadn’t struggled a day in his life and people like that grated on her nerves so much now. “It was nice to meet you, Katie. Uh, again, I guess.”

“You too.”

Gabriel walked off with a wave, and Pidge finally sighed in relief when he had rounded the corner. Her shoulders slumped and she dragged her feet to the front, once again ignoring her stomach’s desperate cry for food. Today had been fairly unproductive, as the past few days had been, and she was struggling to get her focus back. Her mind wasn’t in her work and try as she might, she wasn’t able to figure out what she needed to do.

Maybe it would be worth it to go to a bar and get drunk. Drowning herself with alcohol wasn’t something she’d really considered in the past, simply because of how awful coming down from inebriation could be sometimes, but maybe there was some merit in getting so wasted she passed out. Otherwise, she’d just spend another hour trying and likely failing to work herself to fatigue. But the downside was she had to tap into her trauma and that tended to backfire tremendously.

As Pidge headed out to the parking lot, pulling out her phone to call a cab, she spotted a pickup truck parked in front of the curb with two guys standing next to it.

Hunk and Lance.

She froze, staring at Lance awkwardly. He didn’t so much as react when he looked at her, though he looked like he felt awkward too.

“Pidge!” Hunk exclaimed, bum rushing her and gathering her in a tight hug before she could even think to sidestep him. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“Thanks, Hunk,” she said, pushing a bit against his arms so he might release her. He was squeezing a little too tight and she felt twinges of pain on her old injuries. “You look good too.”

He did look good. There was a bit more liveliness in his sienna eyes than when he’d last visited, and he was standing tall and proud, despite the slight weariness in his demeanour as well. He’d grown out a nice trim beard and his hair had grown long enough that he had tied it in a low ponytail.

When he set her down, her gaze drifted to Lance, who hadn’t moved from where he was leaning on the truck. His expression was closed off, eyes blank, and he had his arms crossed in front of his chest. It’d been a few days since her efforts to drive him out of her life, but clearly he was still pissed off.

Pidge turned away and gave Hunk a weak smile. “How’s your girlfriend? And your relief efforts.”

“We’re making steady progress thanks to some of the members of the Voltron alliance joining up. And she wanted to spend time with her family, so she’s on her Balmera.” Hunk put his hands on his hips and shifted so he could address both her and Lance. “But forget me. We came here to drag you to dinner. I’m not letting you go home without putting a healthy amount of food in your body, Pidge. You too, Lance. No drowning your sorrows in alcohol every night.”

Lance scoffed a bit and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I don’t do that every night.”

“You do it enough that I find it unacceptable.” Hunk’s eyes met Pidge’s. “We need to stick together.”

Somehow, she knew he was talking about her and Lance specifically, and definitely chastising them for not communicating more. It made sense, considering how close to each other they lived, but Pidge hadn’t wanted to keep in touch when his life began to revolve around Allura. And even less so now that they’d made such an insane decision to sleep with each other.

It was suspicious.

She’d hooked up with Lance, they’d parted on less than stellar terms and then a couple days later Hunk turned up and wanted them to go out as a group? She wondered if Lance had brought up what happened with Hunk and he was attempting to mend the bridge.

But she also knew Hunk wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and from Lance’s disturbed expression, she wondered if he’d somehow strong armed him into coming along.

“C’mon Pidge. It’s not like you have any plans.”

She finally relented when a slightly dangerous look started to show up in Hunk’s eyes. “I’ll come to dinner, but make it quick because I have an early day tomorrow.”

“Great!”

Hunk grasped her arm and ushered her to the truck. She ended up wedge between the two of them as they headed down to some lowkey tapas place Hunk had wanted to try, and she tried her damned hardest not to focus on Lance, who was staunchly staring out the window and dissociating entirely. Or at least, he was pretending to, but she knew it was because he didn’t want to have to talk to her if he didn’t have to. So Hunk occupied the terse car ride by filling it with chatter of updates of their work on planets.

This was going to be so awkward.

 

…

 

For all the nerves Pidge had about having to have dinner with Lance, it wasn’t as horrible as she’d expected. Sure, it wasn’t all that easygoing either. Hunk rattled on and on to cover every heavy silence, but Lance didn’t have much to say and barely tried to keep the conversation going and Pidge only gave noncommittal grunts or didn’t bother talking at all. She picked at her food in silence, taking small nibbles of something occasionally and then pushing the rest around on her plate. She kept expecting Hunk to bring up her and Lance’s tryst and lecture them on how they’d made some really bad choices, but it never came up which was admittedly a little confusing.

Pidge had long since tuned out the conversation and was trying to figure out a way to excuse herself from the dinner. Of course, she could pretend she had to use the restroom and then just disappear, but Hunk chose seats close to the main entrance and exit—something she believed was a strategic effort on his part to ensure they couldn’t get away—and he was facing the doors.

“By the way… Lance, I visited Altea before coming back to Earth. Thought you’d want to know.”

Both Pidge and Lance snapped their gazes at Hunk, though Pidge moreso because she was irritated he would bring up that topic when it was a definite source of underlying tension for her. And an obvious trigger for Lance’s current state of melancholy.

Lance’s eyes took on a morose look, though he shrugged like it didn’t matter to him one way or another. “Oh yeah? How’s the rebuilding effort going?”

“Well. The capital city has been made and now they’re expanding. Coran says the projected planetary growth is incredible. Plus, they found other colonies of Alteans hiding in other quadrants of the galaxy to escape persecution from the Galra. Once they found out about their homeland was being rebuilt, they decided to migrate.”

“Great…” Lance responded, trying to appear unaffected, but the nonchalant tone was a little too layered with something hurt.

He was spacing out, his mind clearly on something else—someone, rather—and in another lifetime, Pidge might have taken his hand under the table, intertwined their fingers and given him a gentle squeeze as a show of support for his heartbreak.

But Pidge wasn’t that person anymore.

And quite frankly, she didn’t really give a damn.

“…Allura says hi, by the way,” Hunk admitted quietly, and Pidge definitely didn’t miss the sound of Lance’s breath hitching the slightest bit in his chest.

“Is she…? How, umm, how is she doing?” Lance questioned, a little too eagerly.

“Good. She has her work cut out for her as a monarch, but she’s handling her business. Her powers have been helping to revive the planet. Said she misses you. And she’d love for you to come visit one day if you have time to spare.”

“Funny…” Pidge interrupted with a derisive scoff before anyone could say anything else. Her throat felt a little hoarse from not having spoken for the better part of the hour. Both guys turned to look at her, Hunk looking nervous and Lance frowning. “Wasn’t _she_ the one who called off your relationship because she had to leave?”

“You can still miss someone even if the relationship is over,” Hunk said patiently, though the look he gave her was more of a warning.

“I just think it’s ridiculous how much trouble you both have letting go.” The words tumbled out of her mouth hotly, carelessly and meant to hurt, yet she couldn’t find it in her to care enough to stop. “Why break up in the first place if you’re going to spend every waking moment pining over each other? Get over it already. It was months ago.”

Hunk winced. “Pidge, st—”

“Shut up and mind your own business, Pidge,” Lance said coldly. “What the hell would you even know about being in love? Or in a relationship for that matter? Someone self-centred like you would never understand.”

She knew that it was a beacon for undeserved pain and suffering.

Pidge turned to Hunk with a fake smile. “I think I’ve had my fill of this crap for one night. Can you take me home now?”

“Yeah, ditto…” Lance muttered, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a glare in her direction.

“Guys, c’mon. We were having a nice dinner.”

“No. We weren’t,” Pidge drawled.

“We were having a _semi-decent_ dinner and we haven’t all hung out together in a long time.” Hunk sighed when neither of them responded to his statement or budged from their stance. “Look, I’m planning on visiting Keith tomorrow if either of you wants to come. We should all go together. Support him as a group. And maybe if Shiro sees us all going to visit Keith, he might consider visiting him too.”

Lance nodded. “I have time after work, I guess.”

“Hard pass.” Pidge stared at the wooden table, trying to ignore the way Hunk’s eyes felt boring into her as if he knew exactly what was going through her mind.

And for probably the thousandth time, she regretted letting Hunk know everything that had happened to her all for the sake of getting a new apartment.

“Pidge. You know Keith’s condition isn’t your fault, right?” Hunk remarked quietly, reaching across the table to set his hand on top of hers in support. Before he could make any contact, she snapped her hand back and glowered at him. “Keith would never blame you, considering what happened to _you_ on the mission.”

“ _Shut up, Hunk_. We’re not talking about this right now,” she spat sharply.

But the damage was done.

“Wait, what?” Lance’s brows furrowed in confusion as he turned his gaze back to Pidge. “What happened to you on the mission?”

“Nothing.”

Lance was displeased with her response, contemplating her with some sort of concern that annoyed her immediately.

Hunk stared at Pidge like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Lance doesn’t know?”

“He was informed that the mission was a success. And that’s _exactly_ what it was, barring anything that happened during it,” she responded through grit teeth and giving Hunk a hard look. “The only one who got injured was Keith so there was no need to elaborate further. Okay?”

The silence that fell between them all was uncomfortable and tense, and Pidge knew this dinner was definitively over. In fact, this dinner should have never happened in the first place. Lance still looked pretty confused by the turn of the conversation and a little suspicious as he looked between the two of them, but Hunk’s gaze remained steadfast on her. She could see the disappointment and some sort of disdain swirling in his chestnut gaze, but she ignored him, staring down at the barely eaten fried calamari on her plate.

When the silence started to grate at her nerves, she pushed back her chair. “If we’re doing this whole silence thing, I’d rather be in the comfort of my own apartment. I’m going.”

“Lance, do you mind calling up a cab to get you and Pidge home?” Hunk suddenly asked, the twinkle in his eyes looking a bit too mischievous. “I forgot I need to pick something up from the pharmacy tonight so I can’t give you guys a ride back.”

Lance looked at Hunk funny as he pulled out his phone. “…okay, I guess?”

Then Hunk stood up in a flourish. “I’m going to use the toilet before we leave. Pidge, you should too.”

The sharp look in his eyes brooked no room for argument and she knew that he was basically ordering her to follow him. It was a pretty bad segue, and Lance thought so too, if the raised brow he was giving them was any indication. But he didn’t try to object and so Pidge trudged her feet after the agitated Hunk. They got to the restroom hallway and once Hunk made sure they were out of the way of the dining hall and Lance couldn’t see them, he rounded on her.

“How could you not tell Lance about what Ezor and Zethrid did to you?!” he whisper shouted, looking like his mind was about to explode. “You were in the hospital for a whole month, Pidge! I think he deserves to know that one of his fellow paladins had experienced something horrible like that!”

“I didn’t want Lance or Allura to know. Besides, they were too caught up in their own love life and far be it for me to interrupt their joyful pre-marital bliss,” she said sarcastically, bitterness dripping from her tone. “And calm down. It wasn’t just them. Shiro, Romelle, and Coran don’t know either. And neither does Keith’s mom.”

And she was pretty certain Shiro hated her guts. Sure, he was mostly MIA because of Keith’s injuries, but he also hadn’t made any attempts to talk to _her_ in the year since that mission, so Pidge was 100% certain that Shiro blamed her for Keith. Afterall, she’d made Matt tell him the truth that she’d put Keith in danger.

“Well, this is your chance to tell Lance what happened a year ago. Clear the air. Leaving him in the dark is unfair, especially since it seems you’re still mad at him about it.”

So Lance really _hadn’t_ told Hunk about the one night stand.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not what I’m mad about. But either way, I’m still not telling him.”

“Pidge, I understand that you were heartbroken when they got together. I get that you didn’t want to see him, but he and Allura are still your friends. They were your family at some point. The least you could have done was tell them what happened to you for moral support.”

“I neither wanted nor needed moral support from them. And me not telling them wasn’t about that.” Pidge was tired. She didn’t want to talk about this again. She was so frustrated. Why did it seem like everything was getting worse now ever since Lance reappeared in her life? “You know as well as I do that they were oblivious to everything around them but each other.”

Hunk frowned. “That’s not fair, Pidge. They were in a brand new relationship. And in love. Devoting time to each other is a common thing for lovebirds. And the fact that the war was pretty much over was a good enough reason to take time to work on their romance. You know if you were in a relationship with Lance—”

“ _Regardless_ of whatever old feelings I used to have, believe it or not, I tried to contact Lance. I sent him my SOS when I got captured, and I was completely ignored. Matt was the one who found me by stroke of luck. After _two_ whole days! Do you know how long…?” Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard for a second, fighting the stinging behind her eyes. “And then can you imagine getting out of the hospital only to find someone you used to think was your best friend gushing about his relationship while you struggle to pick up the pieces? If there’s anyone that should be angry, it should be me! I don’t give a rat’s ass about his fucking relationship. Because it clearly mattered way more than a suffering friend.”

Hunk had no response to that, and chewed on the inside of his mouth, looking conflicted. A woman passed by on her way out of the restrooms and gave them a weird look. Pidge took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“So no. I’m not going to tell him. I know Allura was working to figure out the future of Altea and her people and that they were busy, I get that. But at the end of the day, Lance ignored an SOS from me in favour of his girlfriend, Hunk. There’s no other explanation.” She sniffled a bit and sighed in annoyance as she wiped off tears pooling in her eyes. “I know it’s not his fault. I know he had his own life. But I’m still mad about it. And he’s going to feel guilty no matter what I tell him, so I decided not to tell him. Same reason for Allura. So stop talking about this. _Please_. I just want to move on with my life.”

“…Anyone who can see you can tell you’re not doing a very good job, Pidge,” Hunk responded with a soft, sad smile, and she had to look away because it was making her heart hurt.

“I’m managing.” She turned to get out of the corridor and head back to the table. “I’ll try to make up with Lance, Hunk. But I’m not telling him about the mission.”

“I understand, but I think you should talk about it eventually. He’s been there for you through all of our paladin adventures. Why wouldn’t he have been there for you then? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but maybe there’s more to this story than you think or something. The Lance I know wouldn’t just ignore you.”

“Well did you ever consider maybe you don’t know Lance anymore?” Pidge retorted impatiently. “All of us really. We’re completely different people from when we were battling the Galra.”

Hunk narrowed his eyes at her. “We may have gone through some stuff, but one thing that will never change is the care we have for our friends and for each other. You can’t deny that.”

She couldn’t, but she wasn’t conceding any part of this argument to Hunk. It was time for her to get some rest. Whatever energy reserves she had left were totally and completely gone thanks to this poor attempt for a bonding session.

“I need to go home, Hunk,” she stated with finality.

He didn’t argue her point anymore and together they returned to the table. Hunk looked frustrated and Lance watched them approach with a wary look on his face. But Pidge schooled her expression into something normal as she bypassed seating herself again in favour of grabbing her bag so she could leave.

“So our ride will be here in like a minute. Should we get the check?” Lance asked absentmindedly, though his eyes were flitting between the two of them.

Hunk shook his head. “You and Pidge go ahead. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah absolutely. I don’t mind.” Then Hunk turned to Pidge. “Try to get some rest, Pidge.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That absolutely wasn’t happening. “Sure…”

After Lance had made the plan to meet at the hospital with Hunk, she and Lance finally headed out the door. Now that Hunk wasn’t there as a buffer, the air between them was unpleasant and Lance seemed aggravated, but he was also giving her weird looks every few seconds. Even without prompting, she knew he was wondering what she and Hunk had been talking about.

The driver seemed to sense the odd tension between them and after a stilted conversation regarding music—he ultimately kept it off entirely—he said not another word and they drove in silence. Lance had a hand on his knee, jittering as if restless and tapping an unknown rhythm onto his leg.

“So I take it you didn’t tell Hunk about what we did? Or what I said to you in my apartment?” Pidge remarked quietly, curious as to whether Lance had decided to spill the beans. There was a possibility Hunk did know and ultimately decided it didn’t matter, but she wanted to know.

A muscle in his jaw ticked as if just remembering the interaction angered him. “No.”

The one word response shut down any room for continued discussion, although Pidge was tempted to ask him why. But she didn’t think he would dignify her question with a response considering how angry he seemed with her.

_Join the club…_

When they finally got to her complex, Pidge expected Lance to leave, but he stepped out of the cab too. Pidge stopped short, turning to glower at him but he looked entirely unperturbed and too determined.

“I don’t need you to walk me to my door. Your chivalrous act means nothing to me.”

“My mom raised me better than that,” Lance retorted calmly. “And we need to talk.”

“You had your chance a couple days ago and you—”

“We need to talk about the secret you and Hunk are obviously keeping. You’ve always been the kind to flee when faced with things you don’t want to deal with, and I’m not letting you this time.”

Pidge glared at him. “It’s my decision whether I want to talk or not. And I choose not, Lance.”

“That’s fine, but I’m not accepting no as an answer, Pidge,” he shot back brusquely. “Despite that garbage you said to me, I meant what I said, you know? If you need me, I’ll be there. So we can either talk about this like civilised adults in your apartment, or we can have this conversation out here where all your neighbours are probably listening in. Your choice.”

When had Lance become so domineering and conniving? Granted, she didn’t know him anymore, but the disconnect from the person she used to know was very jarring.

“You have a half hour to talk, max, then you’re out of here.”

The look of surprise at her acquiescing was only partially amusing, except that she was displeased with the turn of events. Even if she would spend her night tossing and turning for hours, at least she would have been comfortable on her own. Her “me time” was being disturbed all because Lance wanted to be pushy and overbearing.

Once inside, Lance didn’t seem to know where to sit, so she directed him to the dining room table. He sat back in the chair he’d used the day she’d insulted him and driven him away. The breakfast quesadilla box still remained in its place on the table, untouched since that day and likely growing colonies of bacteria. Lance eyed it for a moment before he gave her a raised eyebrow.

“You didn’t finish eating this?”

“Twenty-eight minutes, Lance. I suggest you use your time wisely,” she responded tartly as she tapped on her watch.

He sighed raggedly as he ran a hand through his hair, and for a brief moment, the exhaustion in his eyes made her feel bad that she was being so obnoxious.

“I know we’ve been in a bad place. And no matter what I was going through, I should have never deserted you, but Pidge, we used to be friends. Best friends even. And now I see what’s become of that friendship and it’s like…” he tapered off with a careless wave of his hand.

Pidge sat in the chair across from him as she bent down to loosen the laces of her boots. She said nothing.

“ _We’ve_ been off for a long time, and I don’t know why, but something tells me that mission has to do with it, because I heard nothing about how it went for you until a while after it was done. All I found out was that Keith got fucked up and next thing I know, our whole group is a mess and you stopped hanging out with me. You know something. You _and_ Hunk do and you’re keeping it from me and I don’t think that’s fair.”

She disagreed. “You prying into my personal business isn’t fair, Lance. Especially since you haven’t been a part of my life for so long.”

“Get over it,” he snapped. “There’s something clearly wrong and I’m not going to sit here and let a friend self-destruct.”

“I’m fi—”

“You’re _not_ okay, Pidge,” Lance interrupted hotly, almost desperately. “You’re not. I can see it in your eyes. There’s something broken in you and there’s no life in your gaze and I can’t leave you like this because I’ve been there and I can’t let you lose the light in your eyes. Not you too.”

“…You can’t fix me. Or this.”

“I can try.”

She snorted, kicking off her boots. “No you can’t. I’m too fucked up, Lance.”

“We all have been through some rough stuff. That doesn’t make you fucked up.”

She was pretty sure releasing tension just to get some precious few hours of sleep by reliving the torture she’d gone through was certifiable. Getting off to the pain from her scar was pretty bad. She could just imagine the horror on everyone’s faces if anyone she knew found out what she would do to herself just to get herself off.

Pidge raised a challenging brow. “You have no idea about anything.”

“I would if you would just tell me, Pidge,” Lance said earnestly. “I don’t need to know the intricate details of your life if you don’t want me to know them, but as a friend—no matter where our relationship is now—the least you could have done is tell me what happened to you on that mission. I knew there was something weird about the way Matt said the rebels stopped the threat. For a supposedly successful mission, you were MIA for probably a month. Hunk’s comment at dinner just confirmed my suspicions that something bad happened.”

She stared at the takeout box on her table with a frown. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. I’ve moved on.”

“Have you?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Because it seems to me that you’re mad at me about something and I don’t know what. And it’s frustrating.” He glanced at his own watch with a cross look. “As far as I’m concerned, I have twenty-five minutes left, and I’ll use them to keep asking you the same question, Pidge. Or you could just tell me what’s up and make it easier for both of us.”

Pidge let out an annoyed breath. At this point, she wasn’t even sure if keeping the secret was worth the annoyance. She was sure Lance would be concerned once he found out, but it couldn’t be worse than having to deal with his constant questions right now. She wanted to be left alone, and now that Hunk had opened this can of worms, that wasn’t going to be an easy feat.

“Katie, please…” Lance looked like it was physically paining him for her to be so cold towards him. “I don’t even need to know why you started distancing yourself from me so much. I just… I want to know what happened to you on the mission.”

The shift in his tactic was too effective because she felt her heart thrum painfully in her chest and guilt wracked her mind.

She sighed, deciding it wasn’t worth the struggle to keep the secret when he already knew she’d lied. “On the third day of my mission, I was trying to bug a communication beacon to intercept messages and Zethrid and Ezor caught me and held me captive before Matt’s rebel group found me.”

“Held captive?” His brows furrowed in worry and she got the distinct impression that he was holding his breath. “…wh-what did they do to you, Pidge?”

“I was tortured, Lance. For roughly two days.” Her throat tightened and she swallowed down the prickles, letting out a slow breath to keep her emotions in check.

“You… you got _tortured_?” Lance repeated in a choked voice, blanching at what she revealed. “That’s why you were gone for a month… You were in the hospital! How come you didn’t tell us?! How come you didn’t tell _me_?!”

“You were clearly too busy to care when it happened, you asshole.” She rose to her feet abruptly when Lance gave her an affronted look. “Not that it matters. It’s over now anyway. And now you know, so you can leave.”

Pidge planned to head to her room to close out this already much too exhausting conversation but Lance caught her arm before she could move away and his grasp on her wrist was absolute. He wasn’t letting her back out of this conversation and it pissed her off.

“Pidge, what the hell?! Stop trying to gloss over it like it’s something that I can just forget that easily in my head!” Lance’s eyes looked wild and he was fed up. “You just told me something insane; how the fuck could I just get over something as monumental as that?!”

“Oh, so now you care?! Why the hell are you all of a sudden trying to be attentive when you completely ignored me when I asked for your help?!” Pidge spat in a shaking voice, trying to pull her arm out of his hand. “Don’t try to act like you didn’t! I sent you an SOS that you completely disregarded!”

His eyes widened and he froze. “So that SOS you sent me… it was when you’d gotten captured?”

The tears welled fast in her eyes before she could stop them. “So you admit it then? You really did ignore me when I needed you?”

She was so close to breaking down and her throat was so constricted it was hard to breath and her heart was so tight in her chest she could barely stand straight and she hated that dumb guilty look on his face and the shame in his eyes and she needed to get away from him now.

“Pidge, I’m so sorry. Words cannot express how sorry—”

“Lance,” she croaked out, closing her eyes and taking shuddering breaths in and out. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

“I didn’t know how dire the situation had been and your message came all garbled and missing key figures for the code and I thought it was a joke to mess with me and I…” Lance licked his lips and stared at the ground, his own voice trembling the slightest. “I didn’t ignore you on purpose, Pidge. I would never do that to you. I mean, I didn’t respond, but I couldn’t help at the time. There was something out of my control going on and Allura and I… Pidge, I’m just so sorry. If I had known, I would have—”

“What? You would have _what_?!” Tears were tumbling down her cheeks, despite her efforts to keep them at bay. “Left your perfect romance to try to help me? Yeah, somehow I doubt that.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know!”

“ _Get out_.” She yanked on her arm, but his grip tightened.

“I can’t believe this whole time you’ve been dealing with this on your own. Why couldn’t you just tell me? It’s been a year. I could have been there for you in all this time!”

“Screw you. You dropped the ball at the most important moment. Forgive me for not trusting you to be able to help.” She took several deep breaths and let them out slow and steady to get over the pain steadily bursting in her chest. “Lance, just let it go and leave. What’s done is done and now we both need to move on. You know now, so go live your life. And I’ll go live mine.”

She was never talking to him again. She didn’t even want to look at him.

“Show me what they did to you,” Lance said in a soft, trembling voice.

“I’m not letting you use this as self-punishment. I told you so you’d leave me alone.”

“I can’t just go back on with my life knowing that you were hurt so badly. My best friend was horribly tortured; I’m in shock!” Lance looked up at her with imploring and glassy blue eyes and she felt her resolve weaken. “Just let me see what they did. _Please_.”

Sighing, Pidge unbuttoned her top slowly and then pulled it off her body, wincing the slightest as the fabric dragged on her sensitive skin. When she dropped it, Lance’s horrified look very nearly made her want to grab it again and cover herself. The only people who’d seen the intensity of the ugly, jagged scars littered throughout her torso and back were Matt and Hunk and the doctor that treated her wounds. But no one else, because she knew how appalled they would be and she just didn’t want to deal with the looks on their faces.

Lance was no exception.

His eyes were glistening as he zoned his gaze in particular on the scar on her abdomen. The most atrocious one, long and puckered, the skin mottled and twisted and ugly with an irregular patch of darkened skin in the shape of an uneven sun surrounding it. It wasn’t just a scar; it was also a second degree burn wound that she was even lucky had healed in the first place without the need for a skin graft.

“Do…” he swallowed hard, seemingly snapping himself out of whatever daze he’d ended up in. He stared up at her and she found she couldn’t break away her gaze. “Do your organs still work, Pidge?”

“They didn’t damage any of them.” Though her heart had stopped briefly in transport to Earth. And the aches she felt sometimes wracked her entire body in so much pain she felt like every organ was about to fail. “They knew what to target to keep me just alive enough.”

For a moment, she was taken back to that horrible stench of burnt skin and the crackling of electricity, the searing pain seizing her muscles until her breathing had gotten so stilted. The whole time, she’d been begging for a quick death, but both her captors were well versed on techniques to torture, so they’d known just how much she could take before they had to stop. Being brought to a very painful edge of death only to be pulled away and the process repeated over and over and over again had been something she still couldn’t get over to this day.

She swallowed hard, goosebumps rising on the back of her neck and sweat beading on her forehead. She felt sick to her stomach.

Slowly, Lance reached out and traced the scarred skin with his finger and she held her breath, hardly suppressing the shiver that went through her from the prick of pain. Heat crawled down her back when he put a little more pressure and she exhaled breathlessly at the spasm of arousal. If he noticed, Lance didn’t say anything about it.

“This is my fault.”

“I don’t blame you for what happened, so stop.”

She blamed herself.

And even if he had acknowledged her message and tried to come, he would have still been too late.

Nothing could have stopped them from slicing open her skin and watching her bleed out in front of them, breaking bones in her fingers when she refused to comply, punching her in the face, and they would have taken a hammer to her knees had she not cracked. She would never forget the hallucinations she’d suffered when her body gave in. The bloody corpses of her family and friends she’d envisioned.

The electrocutions.

A buzzing sound filled her ears and she took in a shuddering breath, her stomach roiling in discomfort.

_Oh God, the electrocutions…_

_“Ezor, how much are you willing to bet I can rip this little digit clean off her whole hand, skin and all.” Zethrid cackled, taking hold of Pidge’s pinkie and wiggling it a little bit. Pidge’s breath hitched and her eyes went wide as fear settled in her heart. “It looks small enough.”_

_“I know you can. I’ve seen it. But we need her to stay awake, so maybe just snap it backwards?”_

_“Please…” Pidge sobbed, closing her eyes and trying to catch her breath. She was still twitching and at this point, her whole body had given up on her to the point she was standing solely due to her wrists attached to the shackles hanging from the ceiling. “Just let… me go…”_

_“Aww, does it hurt?” Ezor gave her a sympathetic smile and patted her cheek condescendingly. “All you have to do is give us the location of the bomb and you’ll be returned.”_

_It wouldn’t be hard. She just had to give coordinates._

_Just a few coordinates…_

_No._

_She couldn’t._

_And she couldn’t trust these evil people. They were probably planning to kill her regardless of what she did or said, and she would rather die than ruin their mission when they’d made so much headway._

_“I won’t,” Pidge breathed, lifting her head as best as she could to look them in the eye. “Even if you kill me…”_

_Without a word, Zethrid bent the middle knuckle of her pinkie backwards with so much force that a loud snap clearly rang out in the chamber. Pidge screamed as her arm jerked, but the shackles kept her from moving. Her hand was on fire and it danced up her arm like someone had torn it right off her body. Tears escaped her eyes as she cried miserably._

_“Well look who’s lively all of a sudden. See Zeth? I told you she wouldn’t pass out if you kept it simple. Zap her again! It’s funny when she screams.”_

_“With pleasure.”_

_And Zethrid activated the rod once again, and Pidge shrieked as electricity tore through her muscles._

_“Pidge?”_

_“Pidge!”_

“Pidge!” Lance shouted, and she snapped out of her daze, gasping for desperate breaths and staring unseeing at his wide blue eyes. Her hand shook uncontrollably and Pidge whimpered as spasms of fire went up her finger and through her body. She couldn’t breathe. Lance shot to his feet and cradled her face so she would focus on him. “Take deep breaths, Pidge. You’re hyperventilating. Follow my breathing. In… Out… In… Out…”

She breathed with him until she felt her wildly pounding heart cooled its racing. He was saying something in Spanish that she couldn’t understand, but it warmed her heart and helped her relax and before she knew, the cool chill of the chamber was replaced by her weak AC unit and the pain piercing under her skin subsided and the smell of mould was no longer clogging up her nose.

She was back on Earth.

She was home.

She was safe.

Keith was safe.

Keith was alive.

Matt was safe.

Her family was safe.

Pidge exhaled and nodded when Lance asked her if she was okay. It took her a few more seconds before she could open her eyes, but when she did, she wished she had kept them closed. The look in Lance’s eyes was broken, full of self-loathing, and the breath he released was anguished.

“God Pidge…”  He whispered, stroking her cheeks with his thumb. He was shaking a bit, and his voice wavered. “They broke you. And nobody could save you in time. This is all my fault.”

“I told you it wasn’t. And I’m managing in my own small ways. Just like you are in your own ways.”

Lance shook his head. “No. We shouldn’t be managing on our own. Hunk is right. I should have been there for you. We should have always been helping each other together.”

Pidge gazed up at him, surprised to see a fiery determination in his eyes. And she was reminded of the look he’d given her several days ago before they’d thrown caution to the wind and done something utterly stupid.

Something utterly stupid that was on her mind right now.

She just wanted to forget for a second.

Was that so wrong?

“…you know, I meant what I said that morning,” Pidge said quietly, planting her hand on Lance abdomen and guiding him back with enough force until his legs hit the back of the chair and he plopped down. He stared up at her anxiously. “About us using each other. It’s not crazy if you think about it. That night we slept together, even if it was only for a short time, something felt right for me. And I think something felt right for you too.”

“Pidge…”

“I need this, Lance. I need you.” She settled her hands on his shoulders and slowly straddled his lap with a smile that wasn’t one at all. “And you need me too. It’s just temporary gratification and it doesn’t have to mean anything, but I just need to feel it again. And I know you do too.”

Lance was still quiet, but he hadn’t made any attempts to push her off.

“You miss Allura. You’re craving physical intimacy like no one else,” Pidge repeated decisively, and something sparked in Lance’s eyes. He was receptive. She could see it. “I don’t care if you have to blindfold yourself every time or pretend I’m her. But I know that night we slept together was exactly what you had been missing. You’re not taking advantage of me, Lance. I want this more than you for my own reasons.”

“This is… what if…?” he tapered off, looking away with a conflicted frown on his brows.

“We can help each other,” she whispered, taking his chin with one hand and turning his face so he was looking at her again. She saw hesitation in his gaze, but there was no particular objection. “Because it did help somewhat. Once more couldn’t hurt…”

“I… If we do this, I can’t look at you, Pidge,” Lance muttered, sounding apologetic. “It’ll just be too… I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.”

It did bother her, but she was about to get what she needed to even attempt a semi-decent night of sleep and she wasn’t going to question the way she went about it. At the end of the day, Lance was a tool for her too. Whatever he wanted to envision was his business.

Lance still looked like he thought they were crazy to agree to this, but he leaned down and picked up her dropped shirt, rolling it up a bit and tying it so his gaze was covered. When he was done, his mouth was turned down in a frown, but he set his hands on her waist.

“We can’t do this anymore after this. It’s just… _wrong_.”

Maybe to him.

Pidge just needed to feel that perfect combination of pain and pleasure and sleeping with him had happened to hit a pleasure mark she couldn’t achieve on her own. She just wanted to reach that high again.

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Pidge ground her hips on his groin, satisfied from his sharp intake of breath. “So just make this count.”

Lance leaned forward and pressed his soft, warm lips to hers, and Pidge felt a spark of warmth as her body sprang to life. Their kiss was kind of sloppy, spurred more from both their need to get off rather than feel any sort of connection. She could feel his heart racing in his chest, much like hers did when his fingers brushed her scars on her skin and made her arousal spike.

She brought her hands up to cup his jaw, tilting her head as they found a rhythm in their kiss, tongues just barely brushing each other’s in tandem. Lance dragged his hands to her pants, unbuttoning them with slightly fumbling fingers. Through his motions, his knuckle scraped her abdomen just right and when she felt the zing of her usual ache, her whole body shivered and her breathing stuttered for just a moment.

And God, it was perfect.

He hesitated. “Are you o—”

“Don’t stop,” she growled on his lips, kissing him harder and sucking on his tongue.

He responded enthusiastically and tugged her zipper down, sliding his hand underneath her panties and slowly wedging them further down. The first brush of his long fingers caressing her centre had her moaning softly. Lance cupped her fully, teasing her folds and pressing two fingers inside to curl against her walls. Pidge arched into his hand, lightheaded as hell and whimpering when he used his palm to press on her clit. His fingers moved in a sinful dance inside her that made her dig her nails in his shoulders. At this point, she was panting more than breathing, sharing Lance’s air, and he nipped her lips as he continued to stroke her harder.

She was a little surprised at how quickly she’d gotten dripping wet. She could feel her body leaking its fluids onto Lance’s hand. She could also feel his hard erection pressing insistently on one of her thighs and suddenly was overcome with a need to have him inside of her now.

“Lance…”

He seemed to understand her meaning without much more prompting, and Lance removed his hand from her panties in order to unbutton his jeans. Once he pulled himself out of his boxers, he wrapped his hand around himself and tugged on his swollen shaft to work himself to full arousal. Pidge stared at his throbbing erection with a dry mouth while she straightened up to kick one of her pants legs off her leg. The last time they’d done this, she hadn’t actually seen it up close and personal and a desire to have it in her travelled down her body.

Pidge shifted so her legs were positioned on either side of him and reached in between them to grasp him and align him with her centre. Lance let out a long halting breath in sheer bliss for a moment and moving his own hands to grasp her hips to guide her down. His hardness at her folds, she finally sank down onto his cock. They both let out deep groans and grunts of satisfaction as he pushed deeper and deeper into her until all of him was fully ensconced inside her. Pidge squeezed her eyes shut as she started to ride him, pressing down to meet his every harsh upward thrust.

“ _hnnnnng_ … _holy_ _shit_ … _yes_ …”

Their rhythm started out too reckless, a little too frenzied, but the ripples of static careening through her felt like heaven. Lance grunted with the effort, his jaw clenched tight as he concentrated. Her thigh muscles were cramping up already and the stretch was a little too intense and just a little painful, but it felt way too good and she gasped for air as she dropped her head onto his shoulder.

Lance was murmuring something in Spanish in her ear and tugged on her earlobe and Pidge couldn’t help the low moan of satisfaction as Lance guided her by pulling her hips down harder. The dizzying pleasure had her mind going blank and yet again, she felt that _perfection_. The desperate release she needed was building up and she grit her teeth as she rode him, pressure building up under her navel. The way his hands caressed her hips and waist and thighs felt too tender though, and an odd feeling of slight disappointment mingled in with the absolutely fantastic grind of his cock buried so deep within her.

Pidge knew his mind was only ever going to be on Allura and it hurt her, but there was nothing she could do about that. At least she was getting what she wanted, so she could suck it up for one night.

It was just one more time to get her release.

And then they could go back to pretending this had never happened.


	4. Chapter 4

The smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs roused Pidge from her sleep before she could even realise she was up in the first place. It smelled good, but she felt groggy, her stomach nauseous, sweat making her skin stick to her sheets and her leg muscles sore as if she’d run a marathon.

She was tucked under her covers though and she peeked over her shoulder. The other side of her bed was empty, and above that, cold like the space had been vacant for quite a while. She sat up as she cleared her hoarse throat, running a hand through the tangled strands of her long hair and trying to fight off the wave of disappointment that went through her. She would have thought after what she’d shared with him, he might want to stay to make sure she was alright. But clearly, she’d given herself false hope.

Lance leaving made sense.

After all, he _had_ said he didn’t want to do this anymore. Not to mention it was just to get off. On top of that, she’d done the same thing to him a few nights ago and disappeared without a word, so by all means, he had every right to leave if he wanted to.

So why couldn’t she shake off the melancholy from his desertion?

Pidge crawled out of bed to get ready for her day, her pace sluggish and slow and her thoughts turning a mile a minute as she washed herself in the shower. She was still sensitive down there, mostly because of how hard he’d been thrusting after they’d moved to her bed. She wasn’t complaining but that third round he’d gotten really rough and she wondered if it was because he was trying to get it all out of his system or something. Thankfully, he hadn’t called out Allura’s name when he came. He’d been quiet, arms shaking over her and teeth grit as he rode out the wave but hadn’t made much noise at all.

But honestly, he didn’t have to.

The shame in his blue eyes when he took the shirt off more than told her exactly what he’d been thinking.

And when she’d woken up from her nightmare in the middle of the night, she’d heard Lance mumbling Allura’s name in his sleep. The fact that she’d even managed to fall back asleep after that was surprising, but it clearly wasn’t a good rest, seeing as how she’d woken up even more exhausted than she had been the night before.

Pidge went through the motions of towelling herself dry, brushing her teeth, drying up her hair, and staunchly avoiding the gaunt reflection she could see out of her peripheral. She forewent getting dressed just yet and wrapped herself up in her towel as she padded out to the living room where the smell of food was coming from.

As she suspected, Lance really wasn’t in her apartment, but judging by the fact that the cup of coffee on her table still had little rolls of steam escaping the top, he couldn’t have left too long ago. There was a plate of bacon, eggs, and some buttered toast, and a small sticky note next to the plate. What she didn’t expect was Kosmo, perched by a leg of the table with his head on his paws and eyes closed. His ears twitched as she walked in, but he didn’t otherwise lift his head.

She crouched and rubbed Kosmo’s head in a greeting before lifting the note to see what bullshit apology Lance had likely left her.

_I couldn’t help but notice you have nothing in your fridge so I went shopping for some groceries. Pidge, please don’t forget to eat. You feel unhealthily bony. Anyway, I had to go to work for an early shift, so I’m sorry I left like this, but I hope you have a good day. And though last night was a little wild, Pidge, we really can never do this again. It was wrong of us to even try. And it kind of makes me sick. So I’m sorry. Call me when you’re up. We need to talk._

She wouldn’t.

Pidge crumpled up the note and dropped it on her carpet, not realising her eyelids were pooling with tears she didn’t understand until Kosmo whined and tilted his head as he looked at her.

“I’m fine, Kosmo… Just angry.”

Although she wasn’t sure why. She knew what they’d decided last night, but it didn’t change the fact that reading his note made her feel like shit. And the way he’d talked about it hurt her. She didn’t know if that had been his goal, but the fact of the matter was, Lance’s callous choice of words _did_ hurt. Honestly, she hated it. The way it felt when they’d been together had been otherworldly, but everything always crashed afterward and made her feel so dirty and disgusting.

_But you are disgusting, Katie._

Pidge was tempted to just drop the plate for Kosmo to eat, but her stomach was squeezing in her body to the point that she thought she might keel over, so she reluctantly took a bite. And another one. And another one, sniffling all the while. Tears were dripping onto her plate, blurring the food, and she wiped at them miserably as she continued her slow process of finishing her breakfast. She still felt like she wanted to throw up. But at least her stomach wasn’t causing her pain.

She’d finished about half the eggs when Hunk called her. She was tempted not to pick up, especially because she didn’t particularly want to talk this morning, but she answered anyway, already anticipating something wholly annoying.

“Yes?”

 _“Pidge, do you know where Lance is?”_ Hunk said immediately, his voice a little frantic. _“He didn’t answer my text last night so I got a little worried he went to go get fucked up drunk at a bar and something happened to him.”_

“He’s fine. He stayed at my place.”

 _“Oh…”_ There was a long, awkward pause that made Pidge wonder if Hunk was trying to figure something out. _“Umm, okay.”_

“He was too tired to go home.”

Wasn’t a lie.

Hunk sighed. _“Good. At least he didn’t jump to alcohol this time. Did you talk about what happened to you?”_

“Yes.”

 _“I’m glad you told him. Now he knows everything that’s going on,”_ Hunk said excitedly. _“So you’ll come visit Keith with us later today?”_

“I told him I got tortured. And _only_ that. He doesn’t know anything else, so no, Hunk,” Pidge responded sharply, her eyes narrowing as she glared at the phone. “I meant what I said. I can’t see Keith.”

_“…Pidge, no one blames you.”_

And the disappointment in her in his voice made her heart lurch in her chest. Her lower lip trembled and fury built up in her.

“Why not? I ruined everyone’s lives, didn’t I?” Her voice came out quivering, and she wished she wasn’t scared that it was true, but her heart was wrenching in her chest. No matter how much she tried not to let this conversation affect her, it did. “Just tell me what a fuck up I am already and say you hate me and get it over with.”

_“No one thinks that. And Keith especially wouldn’t.”_

“Yes, he would. I ruined Voltron.”

_“Pidge… you’re being melodramatic.”_

Her eyes widened in shock.

“You… how fucking dare you?! You have no right to dismiss my feelings like that when you have no idea what I’m going through, Hunk!” She yelled, her voice reverberating around the living room and this time, Kosmo rose to his paws and trotted over to her with worry in his eyes. “Just because I told you a tiny _fraction_ of how I feel does not mean you understand what it’s like! You don’t know what I feel every fucking day! You don’t know how much pain my body is in! You don’t know _me_ or what’s going on at all! You don’t know what it’s like at all to see Keith’s mangled body tossed aside like a fucking ragdoll every goddamned night of your life! And you especially don’t know how haunting that is when you know it’s your fault, so you can shut the fuck up too!”

Pidge finished her rant with a broken whimper, harshly wiping tears as her breathing trembled unevenly. She heard Hunk inhale sharply, indignantly, and when he responded, he sounded angry.

_“So then why don’t you just tell us?! Why don’t you open up to us and help us understand what’s going on with you so we can be there for you instead of locking yourself away and snapping at everyone who so much as asks you how you’re doing?! Because you’re hurting everyone who cares about you and loves you and wants you to be happy, especially your family! You’re not the only one suffering, Pidge! For fuck’s sake, it’s been a year! We want to help you get better; don’t just wallow by yourself!”_

Her throat constricted and she swallowed hard several times, forcing herself to take deep slow breaths in and out. She refused to let herself get affected by his words. She refused to listen to him either.

 _“…Pidge?”_ Hunk sounded alarmed. _“Are you having a panic attack? Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”_

“I’m not,” she responded shakily, her hands curled into fists. “Stop calling me, Hunk.”

_“What?”_

“I mean it. I’m tired of talking about this every time you want to communicate. Fuck off.”

She immediately regretted her words, but it was something she had to say. She knew it was horrible to say to him when he’d just been trying to help her and he’d been nothing but supportive the whole year, but he’d tried her patience and she had reached her limits.

Hunk was silent on the other line for so long she thought he’d hung up, but then he let out a long breath.

_“I’m not deserting you, Pidge. And I’m not going to let you continue hurting yourself. I came back to Earth indefinitely so that I can get both you and Lance back on your feet because you both are spiralling. So I can’t honour that request.”_

“Do whatever the fuck you want then. I’m done.”

She hung up on him.

Hunk called her consecutively after that, over and over again despite her not picking up until she got fed up and turned off her phone entirely. If he wanted to keep pushing like Lance, she’d cut him out of her life too.

The thought immediately made her feel like someone had taken her heart into their hand and was squeezing the life out of it. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Pidge’s stomach rolled and she could barely keep the bile that rose up from exploding out of her mouth before she was running to the kitchen and hurling out everything she’d just eaten into the sink. It landed on the dirty dishes, partially splattering on the counter and the wall, chunks of undigested egg and bits of bacon littering the stringy liquid. Her stomach heaved again and she vomited nothing, gagging as her eyes watered from the pain of her empty stomach trying to squeeze nothing out of it. Pidge stared at the vomit as her body started to shake, the feeling as familiar as one of her panic attacks.

Kosmo nuzzled up against her leg as she gripped the counter, her body swaying and everything growing dizzy like she was about to pass out. Her vision blurred and she gasped for breath as she heard cackling laughter in her ear.

Ezor’s laughter.

_It drifted in her ear again, sharp and high pitched and definitely closer than it was before._

_“Thank you for running!” Ezor said gleefully. “You know I love a good chase!”_

_“Stop playing around already and catch her! This one is related to that rebel piece of shit that ruined our last mission!” Zethrid barked. “They’re the spitting image!”_

_“Aww, you’re no fun, babe.”_

_Pidge looked over her shoulder with a startled gasp when she saw the blur of Ezor’s legs as she leapt into the trees. She turned back around, trying to run faster, putting as much power as she possibly could in her legs to propel her faster. Her lungs were constricted so tight it was painful to take a breath and her leg muscles were fighting every one of her motions. She’d been running from their base so long and she was so exhausted, but if she stopped even a little bit, if she even tried to slow down, they’d catch her and who knew what they would do to her._

_She heard a crash in a tree a few paces back, but didn’t dare spin around to look. Her fingers couldn’t stop shaking, but she pulled up the computer she’d installed on the Marmora uniform she’d borrowed for this mission and started frantically typing out her coded SOS. She couldn’t tell if it made total sense or if she was messing up, but she didn’t have time to proofread. They’d be on her in a second and she needed to get this message out immediately. She tripped on a root as she pulled up her contacts to choose the first one sitting at the top._

_But scrambling to find her footing slowed her down considerably, and before she could send the message, something long wrapped around her waist and yanked her abruptly back. Pidge screamed as she was whipped around and thrown in the opposite direction, her back smashing into a tree._

_The bark scratched at her, jabbing into her skin so painfully, she lost all her breath. The back of her head cracked against the hard surface and black spots danced in her vision. Winded, Pidge slumped on the ground, fighting to catch her breath as two figures dropped down in front of her, their pointy canines glinting in the midnight light of a red moon._

_“Game over, little bird.”_

_Pidge had to get this message out._

_If it was the last thing she did, she had to get it out._

_Cringing from her body’s protest of her movements, she tried to crawl away from them at snail’s pace, sliding on her stomach, her breathing uneven as she opened her computer again. The long slithery rope grabbed her leg and tried to pull her back and Pidge reached out with both hands and gripped a root protruding from the ground, fighting with everything in her being to prevent being pulled backward. For a while there, Ezor grunted, struggling to move her and with an annoyed sigh, released her hold on her leg._

_Pidge wasted no time and hurried to send her message, watching it with baited breath until she saw her hacker symbol appear with a checkmark, showing that the message had gotten to the satellite._

_It’d gone through._

_It was on its way to Lance._

_She only had a brief second to sigh in relief with a small, desperate smile and  wish for Lance to please get the message soon._

_And then a large, muscular, dark figure loomed over her ominously._

_Pidge barely turned her head to look at Zethrid when a boot lashed out and smashed into her gut. Pidge choked and wheezed, curling into herself, but barely getting enough time to rest before she was kicked brutally again, harder this time and more on her ribs. It hurt so bad and tears sprang to her eyes as she chewed on her lip to the point of making it bleed just to keep from crying out in agony. She refused to show weakness, but the third kick had her coughing, gagging uncontrollably as if her whole stomach was trying to escape her body. She felt the blood trickling out of her mouth just before that metallic taste filled her mouth and the back of her throat._

_Pidge whimpered weakly into the ground, her arms wrapping around her ailing abdomen._

_“Don’t break her now, Zeth! We haven’t even gotten to do any fun stuff to her and if she dies before then, I’ll be so mad!”_

_“I still think we should break her legs so she doesn’t try to run.”_

_A heavy boot pressed on Pidge’s knee and her breath hitched as Zethrid put more and more pressure on it until her bones twinged uncomfortably and shifted a bit. Pidge squeezed her eyes shut, quick, shallow breaths escaping her lips as she tried to prepare herself for her knee being crushed._

_“You have to start small! Torturing someone is a beautiful art that should crescendo. You have no delicacy at all!”_

_Pidge’s eyes widened as the leg moved off her knee._

_Torture?_

_Oh no._

_“I don’t hear you complaining most times…”_

_“Different scenario.” Ezor’s hair wrapped around her legs again and she started tugging Pidge towards her. “Let’s take our time with this one. I feel like we’ll be able to get this little piggy to squeal.”_

_And Pidge burst into action, writhing to try to escape it, kicking and screaming for help and trying futilely to claw her hands into the dirt as she was being steadily dragged away._

_“Scream all you want, little bird. You’re far far away from any friends. No one will hear you.”_

_And Zethrid’s grating laughter rang out into the night air._

_Grating laughter that started to sound like a dog’s bark._

_She barked again, and then a wet tongue touched Pidge’s ear._

Pidge sucked in a sharp breath as she focused on her surroundings, clawing helplessly at the ground of her kitchen floor as her eyes looked around wildly. She half expected to see dark shrubbery, the smell of wet dirt clinging to her skin, the aching soreness of her bruised ribs and abdomen.

But all she could see was the bottom of her oven, the dead roach underneath it, and Kosmo’s paws.

He barked in her ear again, sharp, and it had her blinking as she snapped out of it, her whole body wracked with tremors. Kosmo licked her tears from her cheek, and Pidge sat up slowly from the kitchen floor, quivering so badly she thought her body was about to break. She broke down into heaving sobs, curling her arms around his neck and burying her face in his soft fur. Kosmo whined sadly, one paw coming up to rest on her shoulder.

“I’m okay, Kosmo… I’m home. Matt’s home. Keith is alive. Keith is home. We’re alive. We’re home,” she whispered, but for some reason, she didn’t feel any less shaken up than before. “I’m alive. Matt’s alive. Keith is safe. My family’s safe. I’m safe. Matt’s safe. I’m home. I’m home, _dammit_! I’m home!”

Her mantra was failing her, and she didn’t know what to do.

Pidge cried into Kosmo’s neck, her anguished wails echoing around her kitchen.

 

…

 

Pidge shut the door of her work locker, leaving her key card in there and wondering if she should take some sick days off to stay home for a while. Coming to work wasn’t hard, but the problem was some days she couldn’t really associate with her coworkers when she felt so bad, and today was no exception.

She’d had to talk to people, barely able to muster up the right kind of smile to keep them just enough off her case and everyone had kept asking her if she was okay, some even having the gall to point out her eyes being red and puffy. She knew they were just being friendly, but she honestly didn’t want to talk to anyone. She’d excused herself to go to the bathroom and cried quietly in a stall several times that day before her latest hallucination had finally stopped being in her mind.

She was trying her best, but she really couldn’t focus on her work when her emotions felt like they had her mind in a vice grip.

Pidge pulled on her coat and scarf, grabbed her laptop bag, and dragged her feet out to the hallway to head home. She didn’t know if Kosmo would still be there when she returned, but she was kind of hoping he would. She didn’t necessarily want to be alone, but she also didn’t really want to be around people either.

Her plan to slip out without talking to anyone was foiled though when she rounded a corner and ran right into Gabriel who appeared to have been looking for something.

“Hey! There you are!” he said excitedly. “I was looking for you. Candace said you left, but your bag was still in your locker.”

“I am leaving now,” she responded, trying her hardest not to snap at him to get the fuck out of her way. “Or trying to, at least.”

His smile widened, undeterred by her testy attitude. “So, I invited our whole team out for drinks at this karaoke place. On me. Kind of my welcome party to myself. Plus I need to get in people’s good graces and who doesn’t like free drinks. And also to secretly find out who’s the worst singer.”

“That’s great and all, but what does that have to do with me?” Plus Briggs had brought cupcakes that afternoon to celebrate so she didn’t really care.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to come out. We’re all sharing a ride there, and I was told you don’t really go out with them so I was thinking maybe you just needed to be coaxed or something. Plus, you seemed pretty down all day, so maybe going out might help a bit?”

She hitched her bag further up her shoulder. “I appreciate your invite, but no thanks. I really need to be getting home. Feed the dog and all.”

“Wow, I did not take you as a dog person at all. I thought for sure you’d be a cat person.”

Pidge frowned. “What? I’ve had a dog since I was a little girl.”

And then she realised he’d finessed her into revealing a detail about her life when his brows lifted in amusement.

“There. I learned something about you.”

“Please move,” she said crossly, shoving past him and walking away. “I want to go home.”

“Aww c’mon. Just one drink.” Gabriel pleaded, back pedalling and easily keeping up with her brisk pace. “I promise I won’t try to keep you any longer if you really don’t want to stay, but we all work together, and I’ve been asking about you and for such a small group, no one really knows anything about you except that you were a paladin of Voltron and that you’re insanely intelligent. Give us a chance to get to know you. You’re kind of cold.”

“That’s what happens when you go through a war, Gabriel.” But she sighed, knowing what kind of person he was. He wouldn’t leave well enough alone about something like this. “I’ll come out. But don’t expect me to sing.”

His smile was blinding as he cheered and led her to where one of their coworkers was waiting to drive them all to the place. Everyone seemed too shocked that she had actually joined them and it kind of pissed her off. Maybe keeping to herself hadn’t been the best choice to keep attention off of her. If she wanted people to leave her alone and not badger her about her reticence, maybe it would be best to open up a little.

So she did.

She took shots with everyone else, made small talk with her coworkers, shared neutral details about her life, laughed appropriately when stupid things happened that made everyone else laugh, cracked a joke here and there, cringed, applauded, or chuckled at various people’s butchered renditions of classic hits. It was surprising to her how well she’d managed to act like one of them, pretending she had no real problems other than paying rent and figuring out her love life like a couple other members of the team.

But she couldn’t deny that it was a decent distraction from going home and feeling the way she had in the morning.

The drinking.

Not the people.

She could kind of understand why Lance had turned to alcohol and sex to get over his struggles of being lonely. They were addicting. Good ways to forget and to feel better for just a moment.

She wasn’t sure how long their group was there for, but one by one, the other teammates had to go until it was just her and Gabriel. A couple gave her hugs as they left, acting as if they were best friends just because they’d all gotten drunk and shared a couple stories with each other and Pidge pretended she didn’t want to punch them in the face.

She finished off her drink, her lips pursing over the bitter flavour as she watched some old man in a bunny girl outfit try to sing a Korean pop song. Well, maybe bitter flavour. At this point, she’d chugged back so many drinks she wasn’t really sure what they tasted like. The only reason she hadn’t left yet was because she was feeling some nice vibe between drunk and wasted that made her feel kind of numb and loose. If she played her cards right on the next drink, she’d be able to sleep well enough without ending up incoherent.

“You alright?” Gabriel asked, his voice just slightly slurred as he rose a brow and finished off his own. “You look like you just chewed glass.”

“I probably did.”

“How are you not about to fall all over yourself? You’re like five feet tall and I think you totally drank us all under the table.” He leaned his chin on his hand, a loopy look on his face. “It’s so sexy.”

“I am about to fall all over myself…” She could feel it. She wasn’t particularly stable sitting in her seat, and she was sure if she stood up, she’d stumble around. “And I drank softer stuff than you.”

“Hey. Can I ask you something?”

She made a finger gun. “Shoot.”

“I know you don’t give interviews and I know it’s in the past and all and that you don’t go on missions in space anymore because your leader is half dead and all, but what was it like in space? The cool stuff, not the war part.”

The unexpected question caught her off guard. She hadn’t thought about those days in a while.

“It was nice.” She answered honestly, a fond smile on her face. “We saw some cool places and met alien beings so much more advanced than humans on Earth. Made a lot of allies. Saw some really cool tech. Ate some amazing things you could never emulate on Earth. The best part was becoming best friends with my fellow paladins.”

At least until they’d beaten Sendak and Lance couldn’t keep it in his fucking pants with Allura and then half a year later, Pidge had killed their entire group’s dynamic by nearly getting Keith killed.

She traced the rim of her glass with a finger, her eyes trained on a bead of condensation trickling down the side. “We had some good times. Of course, we all split up now.”

“Do you still keep in touch with them? I heard there’s another one of you that still lives on Earth actively. The blue one. McClain, I think. What was his name again?”

Pidge’s eyes drifted absentmindedly to the bar area, not liking the turn of the conversation, and she subsequently froze.

“…Lance.”

“Yeah! Lance McClain,” Gabriel said excitedly. “A fellow notable Latino in the profession of aeronautics. There are so few of us in this industry. I want to meet him.”

Pidge didn’t respond, her eyes still at the bar. She hadn’t just said his name because she knew who Gabriel was referring to. It was because she was actually _seeing_ Lance.

He was sitting on one of the high chairs, clearly flirting with some curvy woman who was standing between his legs and trailing her hands ever so slowly up and down his thighs. Pidge felt like she was frozen in place, watching as the woman leaned in and whispered something in his ear as she toyed with one of the top buttons of his dress shirt. Lance was partially facing away from Pidge, but even she could make out the obscene look on his face and what his intentions clearly were from the way his hands trailed over her waist and hips. The woman dropped a slow, barely there kiss on Lance’s lips, saying something to him as she pulled away, her fingers dragging along his jaw. She clicked away in high heels towards the bathroom, while Lance waited and knocked back the rest of his drink.

“Katie? Hey, Katie? You good?” Gabriel asked in concern as he waved a hand in front of her face. “You went a little pale there for a second.”

“Water,” she muttered, all of her mood crashing in an instant.

How long had he been there and she hadn’t even noticed?

Gabriel nodded and stood up and headed over to the bar to get her a cup of water. As Gabriel left, Lance’s date came back over to Lance, swinging her hips as she traced his shoulders and slipped her hand into his. She said something to him and Lance stood up, turning to take his coat off the back of the high chair. As he straightened, his eyes ended up falling on Pidge.

He frowned for a moment when they made eye contact and then he stiffened, brows lifting in surprise. Amidst the look of shock was one of slight shame. Pidge couldn’t tell what he was thinking and she wasn’t sure how long they ended up staring at each other in the crowded karaoke bar, but her line of sight was broken when Gabriel returned with two plastic glasses of water and blocked her view.

“Here, drink up.” He pushed one to her as he sat down. “Can’t have you throwing up now.”

When Pidge looked back in the direction of the bar, Lance was gone.

Disappointment crawled through her and she chewed on the inside of her cheek, her chest feeling tight as the back of her eyes prickled with tears.

“So… you think you could connect us?” Gabriel asked, sipping his water from his straw.

“Who?”

“McClain. I want to meet him.”

Pidge’s nose wrinkled. “He isn’t in this profession anymore. And it’s impossible to get a hold of him these days.”

“What, really? That’s a shame…”

“I think it’s about time I headed home,” Pidge said staunchly, her voice shaking a bit.

“Yeah, it is getting late.” Gabriel scratched the back of his head. “Hey, you think we could exchange numbers? You know, for work purposes in case I need to communicate with you outside of work about upgrades and concepts I think might work.”

Pidge knew that wasn’t his actual reasoning, but everyone else on the team had her number in case of emergencies on days she had off, so he needed it too. She pulled out her phone only to realise it had been off all day. She switched it on and once it was booted up, she was suddenly bombarded with so many missed call, text, and email notifications. Matt had also sent her a message and called her multiple times, and she knew he had to be back in town too.

Great.

He was likely calling to ask her to tell him where she lived, but the last thing she wanted was to talk to him today. She kept it a secret for a reason. Giving him her address would mean having to deal with unannounced visits to check on her and conversations about her current state.

“Damn. Someone’s Little Miss Popular.” Gabriel looked over her shoulder, watching as she swiped on all the notifications to make them go away. “Aren’t you going to respond?”

“It’s not important.”

She exchanged numbers with him and once that was settled, they both stood up, kind of unsteady, and Pidge realised if she wanted to get back home, she’d either have to call a taxi, walk… or suck it up and call Hunk.

Thankfully, Gabriel gave her another option. “If you need a ride home, I got you covered.”

“Aren’t you drunk too? This was your welcome party.”

“I said I got you covered. I didn’t say I was driving.” He laughed, waving his phone around in his hand. “Called a rideshare while I was waiting for water. It’s out front.”

They grabbed their coats and belongings and made their way to the front where a driver really was waiting. Pidge gave the driver directions to her place. She was glad she could go home now. She was beyond exhausted and she kept seeing that stupid image of Lance and the girl all hot and heavy at the bar and touching each other. She refused to think about why it bothered her so much, but that didn’t mean that was enough to keep it out of her head.

“Take the next right here and cut into the complex on the left at the second light. You don’t have to enter the gate though. I can walk the rest of the way,” Pidge explained tiredly when she saw they were getting close.

When the man turned into the complex, Pidge started to get her laptop bag.

“I feel like this was a decent bonding session. We should go out more often,” Gabriel said, a crooked smirk on his lips. “The two of us.”

Her brows furrowed as she looked at him. “You’re not seriously asking me out on a date, are you?”

His expression hardly changed. “No way. That would be absolutely unprofessional.”

“Not to mention lacking foresight considering you don’t know if I’m in a relationship or not.”

“Are you?”

She wasn’t getting tricked this time.

“Goodnight, Gabriel.”

Pidge opened the door and stepped out of the cab without so much a backwards glance as he chuckled. After she’d moved to the sidewalk, the cab made a U-Turn and left her complex. Pidge trudged on her way, partially stumbling, over to the smaller gate on the sidewalk for pedestrians. She was fumbling to put her key in the hole to unlock the door when her phone started to vibrate, the ringtone drifting out of her coat pocket.

Pidge wasn’t thinking as she picked up, wondering if it was Gabriel to let her know she’d left something in the cab.

It wasn’t.

_“Pidge, are you busy?”_

She couldn’t help her breath hitching at hearing Lance’s voice in her ear. “What?”

_“Right now. Are you busy?”_

“What, is Hunk getting you to do his bidding now since I cut him off?” she spat, the words tumbling clumsily out of her mouth in a flurry. “I’m not going to visit Keith and tell Hunk that he can kiss my ass because I’m not talking to him anymore either! And if you dare ask me if I’m okay, I’ll cut you off too. In fact, why am I even talking to you after that bullshit note you left me this morning? Goodnight L—”

 _“No, Pidge. I was… I was just going to…”_ He sighed, his voice sounding resigned. _“Can you come over?”_

Was he…?

“What for?” She swallowed hard, trying not to let the bitterness sink into her voice. “You have your little one night stand and from what I saw, she’s very willing.”

_“I couldn’t go through with it. Not after I…”_

Pidge didn’t respond, her heart thrumming in her chest. After a few seconds of silence, Lance sighed again.

_“You were right. I need you.”_

 

…

 

_“Oh, God, yes!”_

Pidge gasped, gripping the corner of Lance’s dining table as he rammed into her from behind, each hard thrust shaking the table. Her knees were buckling, her arms shaking too much to hold herself up, and if not for Lance’s bruising grip on her hips to yank her back to meet his thrusts, she would be a puddle on the ground. At that point, her cries and whimpers were drowning out the sound of Lance’s grunts and the table creaking and wet noises of his movement in her every time he drove deeper.

“ _Fuck_ …” he growled, his rutting getting more frenzied.

“Lance… condom… I’m not…” she rasped out between thrusts, a shiver running down her back when Lance nipped the back of her neck, his harsh pants leaving fire on her skin.

“In my wallet…” He struggled to catch his breath to speak. “Do you want me to stop?”

Pidge whimpered and squirmed when he slowed down too much, his motion too distracted. “Do you use them with your one night stands?”

“Always.”

“…then _no_ ,” she moaned.

They needed to stop doing this unprotected, but she couldn’t think straight and he felt too good and it gave her such a rush of adrenaline she couldn’t find it in herself to care. Lance groaned weakly and dropped his head on her back, resuming their frantic pace.

They hadn’t even had the patience to take off their clothes. Both their pants and underwear were pooled at their ankles, her shirt popped open and bra rucked up. She’d barely wrapped her scarf around his eyes before he had his hand between her legs and she’d barely been ready before he’d turned her around and sheathed himself so very deep inside her, she couldn’t do much more than let out a choked noise. It was too rough, too fast, and she was drowning in pleasure, very quickly losing her fight for oxygen. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into Lance, but he was frustrated about something, not even attempting to hide it with every snap of his hips.

It felt good.

But she needed it to hurt.

Pidge didn’t realise she’d said that out loud until Lance’s hand bunched itself in her hair and he wrenched her head back. She arched, a keening sound forced from her mouth and she shuddered violently from the unexpected sting of discomfort. It was an insane feeling, that loss of control making her head spin as he slammed his hips into hers. She was lightheaded, swaying forward as everything in her started clenching hard.

She was almost there, falling and falling, just on the edge of something earth shattering, but she needed just a little more.

Lance’s hand flattened on her back, and she slumped on the table from his pressure, her breasts squished under her. She let out a breathless moan as he loomed over her, his hands curled on top of hers, fingers interlaced and restraining her from moving. Hot breath fanned out behind her neck, the tassels of her scarf trailing from where it was wrapped around his eyes and tickling her arm. His hard heat was buried so deep inside her, striking something that had her pulling in erratic lungfuls of air. Pidge could barely move, trembling and unable to do much more than let out strangled moans as the pressure under her navel tightened, almost hurting her with her desperate need for release.

And then he shifted his angle a bit and her scar was shoved right up against the edge of the table.

Pain spasmed through her body, her wound strained and hurting so bad as he kept driving into her to the point it kept getting crushed against the side. The table definitely wasn’t enough to smother her scream as agonising pleasure exploded hard and fast in her. Tears sprang to her eyes in ecstasy, her drunken dizziness escalating until she couldn’t make sense of left or right.

Everything in her kept convulsing. Ripples of her enormous climax flooded her body. The intensity from the overload of pain blazed through her abdomen. Lance was jerking in her, struggling to keep his pace, sounding like he was dying the way he was groaning but he kept hitting her too deep and she couldn’t breathe, and something in her ruptured so hard her vision faded to black.

And Pidge passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

_“I need to get you back on the ship, Pidge! Now is no time for heroics!” Matt shouted in distress, bouncing her up a bit to readjust his hold on her._

_“Keith…” Pidge croaked, her gaze dizzy and lungs burning from her increasing failed attempts to catch her breath. “I… save… have to…”_

_Matt held her closer, apologising when his grip on her side brushed the bleeding gash and a full body shudder went through her. He raced through the dark woods, deftly avoiding trees, but the closer they approached their EMP bomb’s hideout, the stronger the sick feeling in Pidge’s stomach grew. She could hear war cries and the clanging of metal on metal. Dread filled her, accompanied by a steadily growing anxiety that they would be too late._

_“Keith… save him…”_

_“Pidge! You are in no condition to be—”_

_“Matt! Please!” she cried, reaching up with her good hand and gripping the lapel of his uniform._

_The effort it took wracked her body with a harsh cough, blood spurting from her mouth with each gasp, and pain searing through her entire body. Pidge whimpered, her hand dropping and dangling as she rasped for breath. She was trying not to think about how her entire body was failing her, how the bandage Matt had wrapped around her was completely soaked through with the rusty blood, how her body was suffering from the tremors of her electrocutions. She couldn’t even feel her right hand anymore, much less her arm._

_Pidge dragged her eyes slowly to her shoulder. She didn’t know how bad the dislocation was but the fact that she could see the outline of the bone pushing against and stretching the front skin of her shoulder told her it was severely knocked out of the socket._

_She had to stay awake though. She had to get to Keith and the other blades before the druids did. Before Zethrid and Ezor did._

_And she couldn’t just let them get hold of the bomb. If the Galra insurgents took the EMP bomb, they would all be screwed. The five Blades guarding it were strong, but she knew they would be vastly outnumbered. And they couldn’t just abandon them to die._

_“Matt…” Pidge heard Nyma mutter beside him as they raced through the woods. “This is crazy. If we don’t get her to the ship, she could die. She’s lost too much blood.”_

_“Keith will… he’ll die…” Pidge squeezed her eyes shut, taking slow breaths to force the words out, though it hurt her terribly. Her head swam and she let out a broken exhale before leaning into Matt to stop the spinning. “Please… save him… I’m the only…”_

_“Matt. They can handle themselves. We need to bring her to the ship!”_

_“Matt… please don’t… don’t abandon… not Keith… please.”_

_“Goddammit!” Matt came to an abrupt stop and Pidge groaned when she was jolted. “Nyma, go back to the ship and bring it to the bomb site asap! We’re going to need all the help we can get! I’m taking Pidge to Keith’s group.”_

_“Are you sure…?”_

_“She’s right.” Matt growled under his breath. “They’re being ambushed right now, and Pidge is the only one with the disable key. We can’t let them get their hands on this weapon.”_

_Nyma sighed. “…stay safe. Both of you.”_

_Her footsteps pounded away and Matt started running off in another direction, away from the way of the ship and towards where they’d last left the few Blades with the EMP bomb._

_“Matt… thank you…” Pidge tried to smile up at him, but Matt’s eyes were shining with an uncertainty and fear she’d never before seen on his face._

_“Katie, please hang in there.” His voice shook and in the moonlit night, she could see they were filled with unshed tears. “I can’t let you die. I won’t.”_

_He hugged her closer to him, and Pidge nodded, forcing herself to stay awake, to push past the crippling pain as he continued his brisk run to get to the hideout._

_“Keith… save him… please…” Pidge muttered, a shiver running down her back when the sticky heat of the night air suddenly warped into the chill of air conditioning._

_“Pidge?”_ _Matt said in relief, sounding oddly like Lance._

“Save Keith…” Pidge groaned again, her shaking hand moving to rest on her abdomen.

Phantom pain pierced her, and her eyes flew open with a gasp. She tried to sit up, and then cried out when the tension from her abdomen shot through her body like a spark of electricity. Lance suddenly appeared right beside her, blue gaze wide with worry as he stroked her face. She stared up at him wide eyed in confusion, her heart still squeezing in her chest in fright, pulse pounding.

“Wh… where’s Keith?!” She tried to sit up again, but Lance shifted and held her down by the shoulders. “Lance! Keith is—”

“Being treated in the hospital. He’s safe,” he said calmly, though his voice shook the slightest bit as he tried to stop her from thrashing. “Breathe, okay? It’s just me. You’re in my apartment.”

She _knew_ she wasn’t in that dark forest or in the clearing of their hideout, she was definitely seeing Lance’s worried face, but for some reason, she couldn’t shake the hallucination.

Her eyes welled with tears. “M-my shoulder’s dislocated. A-and Matt? Where’s—”

“Also safe. Your shoulder is fine. You’re safe too, Pidge.” He cupped her cheeks and leaned down, resting his forehead against hers. “Just match your breathing to mine, okay? You’re safe. Ezor and Zethrid aren’t here. Keith is safe. You’re all home. It’s over. You’re okay.”

Pidge nodded slowly, closing her eyes and following the slow, even inhales and exhales, letting his quiet murmurs coax her back to the present, clinging to his comforting scent and the sound of his voice to calm down her wildly beating heart. Slowly, ever so slowly, the dull throbbing of her shoulder and Matt’s ragged breathing and shaking arms holding her as he ran drifted from her mind, replaced by the warm hands on her face and the plush couch cushions underneath her back.

Slowly, her trembling subsided, and she opened her eyes, meeting Lance’s gentle gaze. The steady confidence in his gaze was enough to make the last of her lingering fears dissipate. Pidge couldn’t help her choked sob in relief.

“It’s just me,” Lance repeated. “You good?”

“I’m…” Pidge nodded, accepting his help with a slight wince as he helped her sit up straight. He grabbed another pillow from the couch and placed it behind her back to lean against. “What happened?”

An embarrassed blush rose on his face, and he backed away with an awkward smile, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You… uh, you kinda passed out…” Lance cleared his throat and turned to look at the dining table. Her pants were still sitting in a heap where they’d been. “I didn’t realise until after I, umm… You were completely unresponsive at first. And then you fell asleep.”

Pidge stared down at her legs, covered with a soft pink throw blanket up to her waist, though she could feel her nude ass was brushing the fabric of the couch. The buttons of her shirt were haphazardly done up, and when she shifted a bit, her thighs stuck to each other, relatively sticky from their dried up fluids.

She definitely remembered now, that vivid moment before she blacked out. It really had been something she hadn’t realised she’d needed to shut herself down for once. It hadn’t been the best sleep of her life, but nightmare aside, she did feel a lot more rested than usual. That blinding intensity had been exactly what she’d been desperate for for a very long time. A shiver ran down her back at the brief memory of the way the pain and pleasure had burst at the same time for her, reaching a peak that she’d never been able to and probably never would be able to attain by herself. And she had Lance to thank for that.

She wanted to make up her mind to stop this, especially with the way Lance had treated her, but every time it happened, her resolve chipped away. And now he’d fulfilled a need of hers in every way possible, and she couldn’t shake her desire for it to happen again.

“I passed out from sex?” she asked to confirm again, her cheeks rouging when Lance cleared his throat and nodded.

“I thought it was my fault. For, you know, being too rough.”

“What time is it?” Pidge sat up with a small wince from the soreness of everything from the waist down.

“Almost one in the morning.” Lance rose to his feet with slightly cracking joints and moved to pick up the glass of water from his kitchen island. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you more comfortable, but Allura’s blanket was the closest thing here and I figured you’d prefer something that smells nicer than my covers. I can get you a wet rag too but I wanted to wait until you were awake.”

Pidge froze for a second, an unconscious reaction to her name, and then she pulled the blanket off her legs and forced herself to stand up, grossness between her legs notwithstanding. She felt nasty and dirty from the dried slick, but that didn’t matter because she had to get out of there. She’d shower once she got home.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Lance asked in alarm.

“I’m going home.” Pidge winced with every step as she headed over to where her pants were. She had on her underwear but the panties were also marginally sticking to her skin, not to mention the material was scratching uncomfortably against her with every step.

“What? No, it’s late. Stay. You’re clearly exhausted.”

Lance set the water down quickly, but when he reached out to stop her, Pidge snatched her arm away from him, glowering at him in warning. His arm fell back down to his side and he stood still, staring at her with a pained look on his face. She felt exposed and utterly ridiculous standing there with her crusty panties and she hated the way he was looking at her like she’d chipped away a piece of his heart.

“Don’t touch me,” she growled. “This was what you wanted from me, isn’t it? You needed someone to use to get off and I let you so I’m heading home now before you start up with your ‘we can’t do this anymore’ bullshit. You don’t have to try to pretend you actually care about my wellbeing.”

His face darkened in anger, eyes narrowing. “I’m not pretending to care.”

“So where was all this for the past twelve months?” she spat back, and then realised what had slipped out and snapped her mouth shut.

There was a painstaking silence for a moment where Pidge just knew Lance was trying to connect pieces together.

“I admit I wasn’t there for you in all this time, Pidge… but you weren’t exactly there for me either,” Lance responded quietly, and when his gaze started to look a little too hopeful of an open conversation, she promptly turned away from him. “Especially after we defeated Sendak. You distanced yourself from me. And I never knew why. I still don’t to this day.”

Without another word, she stormed over to her discarded clothes and snatched up her pants with trembling fingers, slipping her legs into the holes and yanking them up in jerky tugs. She had to get out of there. His gaze on her back was stifling, and the longer she stayed there, the harder it was to ignore the fact that she wanted to sit down and cry. The conversation was treading dangerous territory and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about them and their vastly destroyed relationship.

Or the whys.

Lance watched her as she rushed to yank on her coat, pushing strands of her hair out of her face in frustration. She snatched up her bags, deciding it didn’t matter that some buttons of her blouse were in the wrong holes. He still hadn’t moved from his spot, but when she moved towards the door, he sighed loudly.

“Pidge, why won’t you talk to me? I just…”

The pain in his voice made her heart squeeze in her chest in shame, but she didn’t dare turn to look at him. Her emotions were the farthest thing from in check and she knew if she did turn around, she would consider talking to him. And she knew if they even approached _that_ particular talk, she’d start to cry and he didn’t deserve any of her tears.

“I wasn’t lying just to get you in my bed that first time, if that’s what you think. I really do miss you. I miss the friendship we had. I miss hanging out. I miss talking to you about the stupidest shit.” He sighed in disappointment again, slumping down on his couch, though she could still feel the heat of his gaze burning her back. “Look, I’m not going to ask you to be my friend again, if you don’t want to, but I really think it’d be a shame if we lost everything in the past that was great between us in the first place.”

“And whose fault…” she started, her hand on his doorknob.

Pidge chewed on her lower lip, taking a deep breath and stopping herself from finishing the harsh statement. At the end of the day, she was the one who’d started killing their friendship before her mission. He’d put the definitive nails in the coffin for sure, but she couldn’t attribute the entirety of their fallout to him betraying her trust.

Her free hand clenched in a fist.  “The past is called the past for a reason. We can’t revisit our paladin days. Too much has happened.”

“Then why don’t… why don’t we start over?” That hopeful tone was in his voice again and part of Pidge wanted to stomp all over it. “We could go to one of those cafés open late and just talk? I can pick you up tomorrow after work or something.”

“Lance—”

“Please? I know you barely want to talk to me, I understand, but it might give us a chance to… I don’t know, reconnect. The right way. Hunk’s right, you know? We live near each other. We should have never let the rift get this huge. I admit I should have done better to keep up with what was going on with you too. But I want to try now. Isn’t that enough?”

Her phone rang and when she glanced at the caller ID, it was Matt. If it was anyone other than Matt or her mother, she might have picked up as a distraction from this conversation with Lance, but Matt was one of the last people she wanted to talk to at this time. She left it ringing until the call ended, but when he called her again, Pidge put her phone on silent.

Lance shifted on the couch and the springs creaked. “Katie—”

“Lance.” She turned the lock and pulled open the door. “We can try tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean I’m open to reconciling anything. Just text me when you arrive.”

And she left his apartment without waiting for his response. Something told her she was making a stupid mistake, that she was going to regret this greatly, but there was a larger part of her that wanted to open up to him, that wanted to try to reach out and mend the broken bridge that was their relationship.

As angry as she was at him, she couldn’t deny that she missed those simpler days when they’d been really close.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they did need to reconnect the right way.

 

…

 

“So the amount of thrust needed at takeoff to support ample energy to make it through a wormhole in the first place would be maximum, right?” Gabriel questioned, tapping the glass of their controlled wormhole experiment in the closed vacuum. “Starting from zero. But you can’t use thrust in the wormhole because the energy is negated, and without that power boost of speed, how would it stay open long enough for them to exit?”

“It wouldn’t…” Pidge groaned, pacing slowly around the cold lab room and trying to wrack her brain for ideas.

“So… they’d just get sucked into space and disappear never to be found again or what?” he answered, looking at their model wormhole and shivering. “What about the teludav thing you mentioned at the last meeting? If it can power the wormhole, we need to create something similar.”

“We would be able to, if we can find or create something with the same composition as scaultrite discs, but Earth is very behind as far as advancements in natural resources goes, and the tech we would need for that is light years away. The garrison is working on it, but we currently don’t have a rocket with enough power to make a lengthy trip to another galaxy to find an equivalent material.”

And Allura was keeping the lions with her in her castle. It wasn’t like the paladins could really do much about that, considering they couldn’t even use Voltron. And with Keith so hurt, none of them had really wanted to hold on to the lions either. For Pidge, it was a strong, unnecessary reminder of what she’d ruined, so she wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

“I could do some research?” Gabriel offered, tossing his marker in the air and catching it again. “If you have the composition of scaultrite saved in some database, we can go through everything to figure out what is closest enough to it to garner the same general results. And if it’s on a planet closer to us, it might be possible. I don’t mind going through the garrison’s entire library to figure out what we can do.”

“I guess that could work. I uploaded everything about the tech we encountered in space in the garrison’s database, so it is there.” Pidge checked her phone when it buzzed and she saw Lance had sent her a text reminding her that he was on his way to pick her up. Her nose wrinkled, remembering what she’d promised last night. She knew she should have been more positive about trying to make up, but she wasn’t feeling it. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay longer to help. I have somewhere to be tonight.”

His brows rose as he caught the marker and he turned to her.  “Wow that’s a first. You’re usually always working here super late by yourself long after everyone leaves.”

That usually was always the case, except for this day in particular when Gabriel had decided to stay behind and work on calculations with her. She preferred to work on her own, but having the extra brain there had helped because they’d made some leeway with the calculations to stabilise the wormhole they’d managed to figure out. It was still a closed system in their experiment and would be vastly more difficult in outer space, but just the fact that they could now teleport a rock from the glass case in one side of the room to the case in the other was something to be excited about.

She actually wouldn’t have minded staying even longer that night to work more, even with Gabriel, who despite his talkative airhead nature, was actually quite intelligent. It was nice to work on this project with people who could keep up with the speed with which objectives changed and how complex calculations were. So he’d definitely been tolerable that day.

But Lance texted her again and she knew she wouldn’t really be able to get out of this. Especially because he also knew where she lived and as it stood, Pidge had nowhere else she could go to hide from Lance. And she wasn’t contacting Hunk to help her out either, because she just knew he’d sell her out to Lance.

“Do you get most of your work done by yourself or something?” Gabriel asked.

“It keeps me distracted.” Pidge went to her lab table to type her final notes on her laptop and upload the files to the team’s records of progress.

“From what?”

She only glanced at him in disinterest for a second before looking back down at her work and continuing her rapid typing. Out of her peripheral, she saw Gabriel approach her work table, and she almost expected him to shut her laptop screen or something equally as obnoxious, but he sat at the corner, an intrigued look on his face as he watched her update their work files.

“You’re a super private person. I get it. But what happened to the Katie who shared stuff with us at the bar?”

“Hibernating,” she intoned, saving the information and then closing out of all her open pages. “Only comes out once a month.”

Pidge was considering never drinking again, considering how her inhibitions had been so gone that she’d gone crawling back to Lance the moment he wanted her to. Despite how resolved she had been to never speak to him again. It was pathetic.

Gabriel laughed. “No, but seriously. We were making some progress. I found out that you’re a dog person. And you talked about the paladin thing. We should continue this bonding.”

“Why are you so interested in knowing things about my life?” she muttered crossly, watching the screen of her laptop go black and then shutting the lid.

“Because you’re an interesting person. I mean, the paladin of Voltron thing is amazing in and of itself, but your mind is just…” Pidge lifted her head and met his gaze, surprised to find absolute sincerity. He wasn’t trying to flirt or hit on her by saying this. “There are no words to describe it. It’s not every day that you meet someone who can keep up with the speed of your own mind.”

She _almost_ smiled, because she’d had a similar thought earlier. “You’re… odd.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone on our team feels the same way. I just think you’re fascinating. I wanted to be on this project with you for that reason so when I got transferred, I was pretty happy.”

“That so.”

She pulled her coat off the back of her chair and pulled it on before wrapping her neck with her scarf.

When she’d gotten her stuff in order, Pidge’s phone lit up again and she saw Lance’s name on the screen for another text. She sighed, not really wanting to do this whole outing with him thing, but she’d agreed and if she flaked, she had a feeling he’d show up at her place again. She really wished she hadn’t agreed to it now, but it was too late.

“Do you have any plans Saturday night?” Gabriel asked at length.

She paused in putting her laptop and paper files in her work bag. “I’m not going on a date with you.”

“No, not for anything like that. Well… a little like that.” He gave her a sheepish smile, messing with the cap of the marker in his hands. “The garrison is hosting that event for the unveiling of the new tech being used in space exploration. And I know you like tech so I was wondering if you wanted to go. Tickets had to be purchased in advance, but I can get you in for free since you pretty much saved the world and all. Briggs owes me a favour. ”

She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to see what was going on and maybe get some inspiration for her current wormhole dilemma. At the end of the day, it would be a good thing to see what was there. And she probably should to keep up her façade. It would likely get back to her father if she showed up and then maybe he’d be able to convince her mother that she was okay.

“Maybe… Just remind me on Saturday afternoon and I’ll let you know if I’m free.” It honestly depended on how she was feeling. Pidge lugged her bag over her shoulder, scowling at her phone when Lance called her and heading over to the door. “Gabriel, I have to go. Do you mind locking up?”

“Yeah, no problem.” He gestured to the area with their wormhole experiments and the marker board with the lengthy equation written out. “I think I’m gonna stay a bit longer to run some experiments. Make sure the numbers are fail proof and all. Rain check on the scaultrite research?”

“I appreciate it.” She glanced over her shoulder at the door and gave him a small smile. “Goodnight.”  

“Goodnight, Katie,” Gabriel said, smiling back.

Pidge trudged through the lobby of the building to head to the parking lot, her irritation mounting when Lance called her _again_. She’d really picked a wrong day to try to do this. She wasn’t in the best of moods—partly because she could still remember the way she’d parted ways with Lance—and she wasn’t entirely confident that being around Lance wouldn’t make it worse.

He was sitting in his car when she got outside, and she pulled open the door and climbed in. Lance looked mildly peeved at her, but when she shot him a scowl, he sighed and rectified his expression into something less confrontational. He waited until she was situated before he pulled out of the parking lot and drove off.

They didn’t say anything the first handful of minutes of driving. Pidge stared out the window at the passing buildings as they transitioned from downtown to a more residential area with a few commercial stores. They were actually pretty close to where she lived—maybe fifteen minute walking distance—but she’d never really explored the area she lived around.

She could feel the restless energy Lance was giving off though, his hand gripping the steering wheel fairly tightly as if he was trying to figure out something to say. Belatedly, Pidge realised the reason he was quiet was he probably was assuming she wasn’t in a mood to talk. She wasn’t, but if they spent this entire time being silent, it was going to end up being horrendously awkward.

Pidge shifted so she was partially facing him. “How was work?”

“Not too bad.” He glanced at her briefly, blinking in surprise like he hadn’t expected the question. “It’s the same stuff every day. No variety, but my coworkers are pretty nice.”

“What do you do anyway?”

Lance’s confused look remained on his face. “I thought you knew.”

“How would I?” she responded a bit sharply. “We’ve already established that we don’t talk.”

“I know what _you_ do.”

“Anybody with access to the internet can look up what I do.”

“Fine. Whatever. Sorry.” Lance’s expression soured, though he ran a hand through his hair and tried to return to a more amicable tone. “I’m a shift supervisor for that bistro on the corner of fifth. And I do some temp work for the HR department of a finance company. Not my ideal jobs, but you know. Pays the bills while I’m in my transition period.”

“What are you transitioning to?”

He shrugged. “Just working to get my bachelors. I found a cheap school in the next city over that has night and weekend courses available in the curriculum for working professionals. Hopefully I’ll save up enough for tuition by next year to continue to my second year.”

She hadn’t known that. She’d never really taken the time to know what was going on with his life though. She’d just assumed he’d spent the whole time fawning over Allura or something.

“Are you enjoying your work?” he asked conversationally, turning into a small parking lot for what appeared to be a mostly empty tea shop. The exterior was covered in fairy lights and Pidge’s nose wrinkled. She didn’t really want to have to spend time in this fake hipster place with likely obnoxiously and overly cheerful employees. “You’re trying to recreate the wormholes, right?”

“Yeah. The calculations are complicated and one mistake could lead to the destruction of the travellers. Not to mention we’re having a hard time figuring out how to stabilise the wormhole without scaultrite. But we’re getting there slowly.”

He cut off the engine and pocketed the key, before checking his pockets to make sure he had his wallet. “This is just a suggestion, but why don’t you ask Allura or Coran if one of them would be willing to come to earth to bring scaultrite so you can make a teludav for your goals?”

Pidge frowned, distaste marring her face. They hadn’t even been talking about Allura. Why did Lance always have to bring her up in every damn conversation?

“If you want Allura to come back and visit you, why don’t you just tell her that yourself?” she snapped at him. “Don’t try to use me as an excuse.”

His neutral expression dropped, irritation firmly taking its place. “ _What_?”

“Honestly, you’re so fucking annoying,” she continued hotly, a pent up anger in her heart finally being unleashed. She knew those were hurtful things to say to someone who’d gotten their heart broken, but she was sick of it. “If you’re that screwed up and pining every day of your life that you need alcohol to get over this shit, why don’t you just save yourself the trouble and move to Altea?”

“That wasn’t what I meant, Pidge,” Lance snapped back, his voice a low growl. “There’s no reason for you to bring all this up either, thank you. All I’m saying is that they might be able to help if you reached out to them. They were your friends too once upon a time, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind hearing from you. There’s no reason to close yourself off from them.”

He was addressing her as if alluding to her relationship with Allura and Coran, but the fact of the matter was that she knew he wasn’t _just_ talking about the Alteans.

“The whole point of figuring out how to make a functioning wormhole without the use of alien tech is to develop Earth’s technology so that we don’t need to rely on things from outer space. Earth is the least technologically advanced planet in multiple galaxies, so no. There is no reason for me to get the Alteans involved.”

Besides, she didn’t particularly have a strong interest to see them. She was kind of okay with their lives naturally drifting apart.

“…I didn’t know,” Lance admitted after a few beats of silence.

“That’s because you’ve never asked,” she responded coldly. “Too busy since you had your glamorous little relationship and all.”

He rolled his eyes. “My point still stands that you didn’t have to cut contact.”

“Why does it even matter to you if I’m talking to them or not?” She just knew if she reached out and opened communication between them again, Allura would ask her how Lance was doing and other shit she had no interest talking about.

“Look.” Lance turned in the driver’s seat so he was facing her directly. “We’ve fought enough these past few days. I’m trying to make an effort. Could you at least meet me halfway?”

The earnest look on his face made her feel like shit for being so disagreeable and she stared outside the windshield at the small twinkling lights painting what looked like the shape of a four-leaf clover on the side of the building. It would only be for an hour. An hour thirty max. She could fake some sort of congeniality until then.

Pidge pushed open the passenger door. “Fine.”

Lance looked relieved, as if he himself hadn’t even expected it to work, and together they walked to the little café. They picked a table on the outside patio with the small fire burning at the centre of the table. She didn’t know what kind of stupid aesthetic the café was trying to go for, but she did appreciate that it added a bit of warmth to an otherwise cold evening. With the sun setting, the fairy lights added a nice touch. And better yet, there was no one else dumb enough to sit outside in the cold January air, so she and Lance had the patio to themselves. He was nice enough to buy her some tea and though she declined anything to eat, he made it clear the offer still stood if she changed her mind.

And that was about the extent to which they conversed.

Pidge took idle sips of the cup, staring at the cracked tile mosaic design on the table while Lance tapped his fingers to some beat in his head. She wanted to go home. It wasn’t even just the fact that she would rather be at home; this interaction was awkward as all hell and she had nothing to say to him. The right step would be to ask him about his life or talk about his ambitions or something, but she didn’t want to. She’d willingly and stupidly slept with Lance, but outside of that she had no intention of really communicating with him or spending time with him and now she was trapped.

After a few more excruciating minutes of silence of Pidge swirling her cup around in disinterest and Lance obviously trying to think of a way to salvage this conversation, he finally sighed and set down his own ceramic mug.

“So uh… do you have a lot of nightmares? Like, every night?”

Her gaze shot up to his. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because yesterday night, you seemed to have had a pretty bad nightmare. You were talking in your sleep. Kept begging Matt to let you save Keith. And something about an EMP bomb.”

Her heart stopped beating in her chest for a second and Pidge cursed under her breath. It would be just her luck that the one time she’d involuntarily fallen asleep in front of someone else, she’d had the nightmare about that part of the mission.

“Do you regularly have dreams about the mission?” Lance asked softly, his gaze imploring and worried.

She nodded, though she instantly regretted even revealing that, because just as she’d suspected, the next thing Lance asked was:

“…What happened?”

“I’m not talking about the mission,” she said, curt.

“Pidge, I’m not trying to be pushy, but what’s the point of trying to reconnect if you won’t even open up?” he responded in frustration. “I’m not telling you you have to share everything if you don’t want to, but I want to understand where you currently are in your life, and I can’t do that if every time I ask you about what happened you close yourself off.”

“My idea of reconnecting is talking about basic shit like what’s going on with our families and work. _Not_ about a traumatic moment of my life that I don’t want to think about again!”

“Well then fucking say something about your family or work! I’ll take _anything_ over this cold shoulder treatment you’re giving me, but you won’t even give me something to work with. I just want to talk to you!”

She didn’t realise how tightly her hands were clenched into fists until she felt the sting of a nail piercing her palm. “I wouldn’t have agreed to this little outing if I knew you were trying to bring up old scars from the past.”

“Why did you even agree then?” Lance spat brusquely.

“ _Because_ —!” She snapped her mouth shut, her cheeks flushing in anger and embarrassment. She’d agreed because for a stupid second, she’d believed it would be a good idea to befriend Lance again after he’d hurt her. But now she couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had to have been going through her mind to even say yes. She’d forgotten herself. “If you bring up the mission again, Lance, I’m leaving.”

“Fine… I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up.”

Lance’s shoulders slumped, dejection on his face, and Pidge’s heart twisted a bit in remorse. But she refused to waver from her stance on this. She would rather talk to her mother about the mission than talk to Lance, and _that_ was saying something.

She occupied the terse silence that followed by slowly draining her tea. Pidge wasn’t in a very talkative mood, but she knew Lance wouldn’t be willing to leave when they’d barely even arrived in the first place. But it was quickly becoming clear to her that attempts to talk would always devolve into arguments. Conversations would never work between them. This whole botched effort to “reconnect” was the clear evidence.

“Pidge. The last time we… well, you seemed exhausted,” Lance spoke up tentatively, looking a little flustered. “When was the last time you had a full night of rest, no interruptions?”

“I wouldn’t call it a full night of rest, but the best sleep I’ve gotten recently was the night I got fucked so hard I passed out,” Pidge retorted dryly on purpose, just to watch Lance squirm uncomfortably. His face twisted in unease. “You were pretty aggressive with me. Were you taking your frustrations out on me just because you could?”

“I— You had— It wasn’t…” Lance floundered for words, but he ultimately aborted whatever he’d been about to say, an odd look on his face. “I was out of line. I—”

“It doesn’t matter, Lance.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a problem with it. I was just messing with you.”

“Pidge… I have to be honest with you.” He lifted his gaze from the table and met hers and she clenched her jaw, preparing for something wholly annoying. “The real reason I wanted to talk was because something has been eating up at me since I found out about your scar. And me not responding. I think I… I owe it to you to tell you why I didn’t answer. Or rather, _couldn’t_. I owe you that much.”

She felt her anger creep up again, vexation festering in her from Lance’s continued attempts to focus the conversation on the worst time in her life. “I thought we established that we’re not talking about the past.”

“ _Your_ past and the mission. This is about me and—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she countered swiftly, messing with the end of the plait of her hair to avoid his betrayed look. “I’ve got my own demons. I’m not here for being your therapist.”

Not to mention she didn’t want to know what had happened between Lance and Allura. Either it would break her heart or she wouldn’t deem it a good enough reason for him to have ignored her. Either way, it was a surefire way to bring more suffering in her life and she didn’t want that. And as far as she was concerned, the whole point of them using each other was a way to relieve themselves of whatever issues they were dealing with without the burden of conversation.

Lance scowled at her. “So if I ever told you I needed someone to talk to about what happened to me and Allura those past couple of years, you wouldn’t listen?”

Pidge rubbed at the old scar on the pinkie of her right hand. “Our situations are different…”

“How? We both suffered. Maybe yours was more physical, but that doesn’t mean my life was all happy-go-lucky at the time. And if you listened to what I have to say, you’d know that.”

Yes, but Pidge didn’t want to hear about his relationship. Because listening to him talk about that was another source of her pain and she wasn’t ready to introduce yet again her struggles dealing with knowing that they’d been in love and happy.

“I can’t listen to your problems, Lance. I’m not in a place where I can, but even if I was I wouldn’t want to. And you might think me cruel to say that, but that’s the truth.” She finally met his gaze, and she wished she hadn’t because Lance wasn’t even trying to cover up his sorrow from her callous dismissal. “I know you’re lonely, and I can listen to anything else you have to say… but not if it’s about you and Allura.”

“Why not?” he asked indignantly. “What’s your damage with me and Allura?”

“This whole pushing thing is really starting to get on my nerves, Lance,” Pidge growled through clenched teeth.

“You’ve been bottling things up so badly that you’re destroying yourself, Pidge. We both need healing and believe it or not, I feel like we can really help each other, even if we’re at odds!”

Pidge knew she needed Lance for her physical needs, but the conversations were just not what she wanted. She was fine with fucking for temporary satisfaction and she was okay with being used, but outside of that, she had no interest.

“Being reminded of the fact that you two were enjoying your time reminds me of the fact that you didn’t respond to me. And I’m sorry Lance, but I won’t be getting over that for a long time.”

“I’m trying to explain what happened so that you can find some closure! I know it won’t be enough to make up for it, but you deserve to know.”

“Don’t bother,” she said staunchly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care if it has anything to do with me. Talk to Hunk.”

“That’s rich…” His eyes narrowed angrily, looking glassy from his emotions. “So that’s what you’re planning on doing? We just use each other carelessly like neither of us matters to the other? No concern for each other? We used to be friends. You used to actually care about people! You used to care about _me_ , and I’m trying to be positive, but you act like you hate me and it fucking _hurts_ , Pidge. Why are you being so cold?”

“You’re the one who wrote that shitty note to me!” Pidge’s eyes stung with frustrated tears, her heart squeezing tight in her chest. “And you’re the one who said you were sickened by me, so I’m acting accordingly after being treated that way! You started all of this, Lance!”

“I didn’t think ‘using each other’ meant that you would start acting like we have no connection at all! Not even a semblance of our former friendship!”

“That’s exactly what that means! We are not _friends_ , Lance. And we don’t have a connection. You’ve made that abundantly clear with the way you’ve acted like we murdered someone every time we fucked!”

“Because it’s weird and I don’t understand it, okay?!” he shouted emphatically. “Less than a week ago, I didn’t even know where the fuck you’d even gone and then all of a sudden you poofed into my life after a yearlong absence and we ended up having sex! I don’t even know why I even let it go this far when I don’t even want…”

He tapered away with a grimace, but Pidge’s blood went cold, fury bursting in her chest when she heard it. It felt like being slapped in the face, and though she herself had known exactly where he’d always stood whenever they’d fucked, hearing it come out of his mouth was more pain than she’d wanted to endure.

“Want me,” she concluded, her voice breaking as she swiped at the tears in her eyes. “When you don’t even want me, right?”

Lance sighed, scratching the back of his head. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

“Let me make this clear. I see no reason to entertain your existence in any other capacity than as a meaningless fling,” Pidge said cruelly. “You’re still obsessed with Allura, and every time we fuck, you pretend I’m her. You’re not emotionally available for me, so why the hell would I be emotionally available for you? And that’s why I don’t want to hear anything you have to say about how your life has been.”

“Pidge, I’m sorry,” he pleaded, looking horrified by her ruthlessness, but she had no interest in listening to this bullshit anymore. She’d had it right the first time to limit any and all of their interactions. Why she’d given in and gone to him again, she didn’t know. “Just listen to me. I know it came out wrong, but I was trying to say that I never intended to be with you like _that_ and after all that’s happened, starting over might be—”

“We’re not starting over. And I don’t even think we can ever become friends again, Lance. I’m done with you,” Pidge refuted acerbically. Lance’s eyes went wide as he stared at her. “You know, I put up with a lot of your bullshit. The fact that I even entertained a conversation with you after what you did surprises even me. I was willing to give our friendship a shot again to some extent, but I’m drawing the line now. You have a lot of nerve talking to me this way when you haven’t made amends for abandoning me to get tortured.”

Lance blanched. “I didn’t abandon you.”

“Yes you did.” She smiled, something she knew looked horribly wrong on her face, because she had no intentions of saying anything kind or appeasing. “You knew I needed help and you left me to die.”

“Pidge, _please_ listen to me. If you’ll just let me explain why, you’ll under—”

“There’s nothing _to_ understand. I desperately needed your help and you turned your back on me. There’s no way to turn back time to where you didn’t, so there’s no reason to even revisit this. And don’t disrespect me by pretending like you telling me is for _my_ closure. I already made peace with the fact that you’re a selfish prick long ago. You just want to alleviate your own guilt because you think I blame you for my torture. Well I don’t, okay? So stop!” She hissed, snatching her bag from the back of the chair and shooting up from her chair. “Thank you for inviting me to this, because it confirmed to me that I need to cut off all contact with you. I want nothing to do with you. And everything we’ve done was a mistake, Lance. Have a nice life.”

Lance also rose to his feet in alarm. “Where are you going?”

“ _Home_. I’d rather get tortured again than be anywhere near you for a second longer!”

And with those parting words, she stormed off of the little patio, ignoring the looks from eavesdropping people who were out on the sidewalks at this time of night. She knew she looked on the verge of crying and her eyes were likely red and puffy, not to mention her blotchy cheeks, but she was glad that people had enough sense to keep clear out of her way and not approach her to see if she was okay.

She didn’t dare look back at Lance.

 

…

 

Pidge had been hoping that Kosmo would be inside her apartment when she walked in. He tended to rest by her legs while she tried futilely to fall asleep and it was a source of comfort for her, even if he also represented a part of her life she was desperate to shuck away.

But when she opened her door, the lights were on and Hunk was sitting on her couch observing the contents of some black book in his hand. The only reason Pidge didn’t scream bloody murder was because she was far too exhausted and emotionally drained from being with Lance to react.

“Pidge!” Hunk said happily, snapping the book shut as he stood and heading over to her. “You’re finally home.”

“How did you even get in here?” Pidge took her boots off, growing fed up with the whole universe conspiring to make her life more difficult. “And I thought I told you to fuck off.”

“Well, I can’t do that, but you weren’t responding to me, so I had to take more drastic measures.” Hunk planted his hands on her shoulders and steered her towards the couch. She was too tired to fight back, so she just let him guide her. He forced her to sit and Pidge plopped down, hoping that whatever got him acting like this would be over soon. “I broke in and let myself in an hour ago. Of course, afterward, I found out you keep your spare above the doorframe…”

“Hunk, I told you I didn’t want to talk to you anymore,” she responded wearily as she leaned back against the cushions. The pressure in her head from her burgeoning headache was just the icing on top of the cake.

“You’ve been crying.”

She slowly massaged her temples, eyes closed as she breathed in and out, slow and steady. If she ignored him, maybe he’d leave.

“Anyway,” he continued, completely unbothered by her standoffish attitude. He headed into the kitchen, and Pidge briefly considered how quickly she’d have to move to get her shoes on and escape her apartment before Hunk figured out what she was doing. But she gave up halfway in her planning. The only reason she dropped the idea was because she had no idea where she’d go. “I made you some food. Lance just texted me like five minutes ago and told me you hadn’t had dinner, so perfect timing.”

“ _Hunk_ ,” Pidge interrupted sharply before he could continue. “I’d really rather not be around people so can you please leave? Get out of my apartment already.”

Hunk didn’t say anything in response, and Pidge winced at her abrasive tone, automatically feeling shitty. She wanted him to leave, yes, and she was angry at him too, but being mean to Hunk was difficult for her to stomach. Being mean to Lance was hard too, but if she wanted to cut ties, she would need to be that aggressive for them to take a hint.

“Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.”

“What?” She hadn’t been paying attention, so Hunk’s sudden comment caught her off guard.

He turned around from the stove, holding a small tray with a bowl of piping hot food in it, judging by the steam drifting over the top. As he approached her on the couch, she realised it was soup, and it had a mouthwatering scent that made her stomach growl, desperate for food.

“In order for you to feel satisfied with life, to find happiness, to _heal_ ,” Hunk said with a poignant look at her as he set the tray on her lap, “you need to fulfil each of the needs of the hierarchy starting at the bottom. The most important one is your general physiological needs like food and sleep, neither of which you are fulfilling. So I made you soup to start, because we need to get those taken care of asap. You look like you’re one sharp gust of wind from being blown into dust, Pidge.”

Pidge scrubbed her hand over her face. “I’m not hungry.”

And then her traitorous stomach growled. Hunk didn’t smirk or laugh or change his serious expression. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table in front of her, concern in his soft chestnut gaze.

“It’s not heavy. This is an old recipe my mom used to make for me when I was sick and couldn’t stomach real food. It’ll help you get some nutrients in until your body gets used to eating food again and you don’t throw up anymore,” Hunk said gravely and Pidge’s eyes went wide as she stared at him. “You didn’t clean it up from your sink and you left that old breakfast on your table, so I put two and two together. Pidge, I need you to eat this soup. You’re killing yourself, and it’s breaking my heart to see you like this. I know we’re all fucked up after Voltron, but we don’t have to keep living like this.”

Pidge sighed, but she replied by picking up the spoon and tasting a spoonful. It was good. Savoury and silky with a hint of spice, some green onions too, and like he’d said, light enough that it didn’t make her stomach feel like it was turning circles inside her. It filled her stomach and chest with gentle warmth, and for the first time in a while, Pidge suddenly realised just how hungry she’d truly been.

Hunk watched her with a relieved smile, his eyes watery as he sniffled. “Thank you.”

“After I finish this, you’re leaving…” she muttered, steadily taking spoonfuls of the soup and keeping her gaze staunchly on the bowl.

Hunk hummed, but otherwise didn’t show any sign of agreement. He waited patiently while she ate, not budging one inch and very obviously making sure she drank every last bit of the soup. It was frustrating that he wouldn’t leave her alone, but also oddly touching in a way. When she slurped up the last bit, Hunk took the tray and set it on the table beside him. She expected him to make some other speech and leave, but he picked up the black book he’d been looking at earlier and handed it to her.

Pidge stared at it in disinterest before looking up and giving him a blank look. “I don’t want a book, Hunk. Thank you for the soup, but you can see yourself out.”

“It’s a journal, Pidge. It has prompts at the top to help you get your random thoughts off on paper. I thought it might help.” He shrugged sheepishly. “Your mom did too. She said you stopped therapy, but you need a constructive outlet to release your emotions.”

“ _What_?” Pidge glared at him furiously. “So you guys are talking about me behind my back now? Is that it?! Who even gave you permission to contact my mother and start disclosing my life to her, huh?!”

“ _She_ contacted _me_ , Pidge. Believe you me, whatever you think you’re hiding from your mom, she already knows. Everyone knows you’re not okay. All it takes is one look at you to know you’re not okay.”

“I already told you—”

“I’m not budging on this, Pidge.” Hunk stopped her by setting a hand on her knee and gently squeezing. “Not until you can stand on your own two feet again. I’m taking responsibility for your pain, and I’m going to make sure we wipe it away.”

Pidge looked away from him and swallowed with difficulty, her throat tightening as tears stung behind her eyes.

“Can you please leave, Hunk?” she whispered, her voice wavering.

“It’s okay to struggle. No one is saying you have to be okay right now. And I get that it takes time, but it’s been a year, Pidge. So I’m not going to let you stay like this. Let me be there when you need to cry. Lance too. We just want to see you happy again.”

She wiped away the tears trailing down her face with a sniffle. “I… I don’t know how, Hunk. I feel like I’m trapped. I’m scared I won’t be able to escape if I even try.”

“That’s the thing about grief and misery,” he responded softly. “It’s easy to get entrenched in it, to get comfortable with being sad because that’s all you know for so long. And I know it’s hard to get out of it when it gives you an identity you think you’ve lost. You’re finding comfort in being sad all the time because you think you have nothing else to lean on. I get it and that’s okay. But you don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Hunk…” She let out a small, choked up whimper, letting him tug her forward and pull her into a tight hug. “I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom. I’ve fallen so deep in the hole I don’t even think I can get out anymore.”

“Then I’ll pull you out, Pidge. Even if I have to mother hen you every damn second of every damn day, I’ll be there every step of the way to help you.” Hunk rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles, and Pidge couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “You’re not alone. Believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere, okay? You’re going to heal.”

She nodded, pressing her face into the crook of his neck as she quietly sobbed and honestly believing in the strength and conviction of his words.

It’d be a slow, arduous process, but she could do this.

She could heal.


End file.
